


Worlds Apart

by NerdyGeiszler (Dr_Newton_Geiszler), orphan_account, UrmanGottlieb (Dr_Hermann_Gottlieb)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, brief use of homophobic slurs, mentions of self harm, minor scenes of violence, only in pre canon though, pre canon through post canon, scene of parental violence, short sex scene, tw slurs parent abuse self harm and panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 17:12:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Newton_Geiszler/pseuds/NerdyGeiszler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Hermann_Gottlieb/pseuds/UrmanGottlieb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After meeting briefly, falling in love and falling apart in their youth, Newt and Hermann are reunited. It doesn't go quite how they would have liked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! First off, This is the first fic that my lovely girlfriend (Dr_Hermann_Gottlieb) Have collaborated on. (Wooo, go us!) I'm mentioning this because I want to give credit where credit is due. She wrote all of the chapters that took place from Hermanns point of view and all of his dialogue, and I did the same for Newt. This Fic switches perspectives and includes flashbacks. We will be adding warnings as we go and just to warn you all now, this fic gets/very/ angsty. During the flashbacks German will occasionally be used. We will have those translations in the ending notes. Just so no one is confused, this fic is not entirely an AU. The events of the movie remain the same, the differences take place before canon. Enjoy!

     “And this will be your lab, Dr. Gottlieb. You will have to share, due to space limitations, but it is our largest lab space, if it’s any consolation,” the ensign jumbled as he gestured to a doorway just down the hall. He had been speaking very quickly throughout his brief tour of the facilities, and Hermann had begun to suspect that the young man was a fan of his work somewhere between the cafeteria and his bunk. As the tour seemed to reach its end, he began to muster strength for the inevitable coming mention of his guide’s ‘great respect’ or ‘fascination’ with his work; God, the man even seemed the type to ask for an autograph. Hermann couldn’t help but hope that the ensign would abruptly disappear, that he might avoid the exchange.

     “Quite alright, naturally. I suppose you have me with another mathematician or theoretician?” Hermann responded, more than slightly bored after almost half an hour of dealing with the man. 

     “I...don’t really know. I generally have duty with the pilots.” At a look from Hermann, the ensign blushed an alarming shade of red and elaborated: “I-I swapped shifts so I could give you your tour. I just...I read through your articles on the rift, and I must say that it’s an honor to have you here, Dr. Gottlieb. Would you...would you perhaps sign my copy of ‘On the Breach and its Structure?’”

     Hermann reached into his jacket for a pen and scrawled something like his name near the title of the journal publication before walking past the young man that appeared likely to burst. He still wasn’t comfortable with the notoriety his name now carried. Of course, within the correct circles his name had always carried some weight, but never the likes of colleagues such as Green or Hitchin. Even his students very rarely treated him with any exceptional respect, as quite often they were approximately his age.

     Now, of course, it seemed as though every last Paul, Dick, and Henry knew his name, not from his more interesting or involved papers, but from the thrice-cursed “On the Breach and its Structure.” Even if they hadn’t understood it, even if they hadn’t _read_ the damn thing, most people could at least identify his name with the Jaeger program. Correction: his sample size was far too small to make such a statistic generalization. To be more accurate, the frequency of recognition of his name in those outside his field had increased manifold and the number of autographs had risen from exactly two to hundreds in little over a year.

     Hermann shook himself out of his train of thought as he approached the heavy metal door. “Just, please, don’t let it be a biologist,” he muttered under his breath, “Anything but a biologist.”

    After one deep breath to steady himself, Hermann turned the handle and entered the lab. Naturally, the first thing to catch his eye was a rather large, spined, _reeking_ sample that only could have been from a Kaiju. Moments like this reminded Hermann why he was not religious.

    Fortunately, the three triple chalkboards that moved with him from lab to lab had been assembled correctly and in a logical arrangement along the side of a wall, far from the ongoing dissection and the rather large door on the side that likely led to a specimen containment area. Further, it did not appear that his new partner was present, so he’d likely have a few moments to make certain the space was just as he was used to: neat and orderly.

    He approached the small desk next to the chalkboard arrangement and placed his bag gingerly upon the surface. From within, he reverently withdrew his set of chalk and erasers. The six pieces that had most recently been in use as well as his best eraser were carried over to the boards and placed in their rightful positions. Hermann then looked up at the empty plane and began copying down the work he had been in the middle of upon his relocation.

    A sudden snore coming from the previously unnoticed couch along the wall next to the storage doors startled Hermann out of his focus. “By Jove, what on Earth!?” he exclaimed, almost stumbling from his perch atop his ladder. He moved down quickly, and began hobbling towards the originator of the sound. At first it wasn’t clear whether the shape was even an actual person as it was nestled into multiple, thick comforters that obscured gender, size, and species.

    Hermann was not entirely sure what to do. Most likely, the form was indeed the as-yet unnamed biologist, but other possibilities ranged from a tired J-Tech officer to yet another sample (a thought which he distinctly attempted to ignore). As a precaution, Hermann decided the safest route was to prod the figure with the end of his cane. A moment after an initial jab, a tousled head appeared from within the many covers, murmuring some unknown words just loud enough to establish that whoever was asleep was most certainly male. Having established that whatever was resting on the bed was definitely human, Hermann began to return to his boards.

    “Wha- whaddayouwant?” a distorted voice from the couch queried, interrupting Hermann’s path.

    Hermann turned tightly upon his good foot and began moving back to the form upon the couch. “So you are awake. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure; I’m Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, applied mathematics,” the mathematician responded while proffering his hand.

    “Not n- now Herms, m’sleepin…” he responded before rearranging himself within the covers.

    Hermann’s hand wavered and began to lower. “If you wouldn’t mind, I prefer my title. While I understand that you are attempting to sleep, I would prefer to know with whom I’ll be sharing this space for the foreseeable future.”

    “Wait..wait…. Hermann? _Hermann?!_ Dude, it’s me, man. Newt… you… remember me, right?”

OoOoO

    Hermann looked up from his textbook as the door to the flat opened upon a scrawny kid wearing thick glasses and a t-shirt proudly presenting a prism distorting a beam of white light. “So you’re to be my flatmate this summer? Pleased to meet you, I’m Hermann Gottlieb.” He closed the text on Fourier and Laplace Transforms and stood from the small kitchen table, proffering his hand.

    The young man stared down at said appendage for a moment before slapping first the front, then the back, and finally returning for a single strong handshake. “Hey, name’s Newt. Newt Geiszler. Sup, man?”

    Hermann blinked twice in surprise at the response. “I’m not hungry, no, though you are welcome to what you can find in the refrigerator and pantry.” He waved at the small kitchenette with little more than a small fridge, some counter space, a few cabinets and a gas stove and oven. “You’re American, I take it?” Hermann responded, settling once more at the table as Newt threw his satchel on the ground next to the door.

    “Yeah. MIT, dude. How 'bout you? You from around here?” Newt asked, collapsing onto a chair. Hermann attempted not to wince as he saw his favorite armchair bounce in complaint to its mistreatment.

    “I study here, yes, but I’m from a small village near the Austrian border, southwest of Munich.” Hermann looked back down at his textbook, trying to return to his transforms.

    “Right, cool. I was born in Berlin.  I’ve been there for a few like, holidays and shit. Awesome.”

    Hermann glanced back up at the young man. “ _Sprechen sie Deutsch_?”

    " _Ja, ein bisschen aber nicht genug für ein Gespräch führen_ ,” Newt responded, head lolling back against the arm of the chair while his legs dangled over the other side.

    “I could tell, your accent was terrible. Do you mind?” Hermann commented dismissively, looking rather intently at the feet dangling off the chair.

    “Oh, right. Sorry, dude. Lemmi just…” Newt swung his legs to the front and reoriented himself, sure to maintain the most relaxed position possible. Hermann’s spine ached just seeing the torsion placed upon the other man’s lower back. ”Erm… What are you studying?”

    “Fourier Transforms,” Hermann responded, glancing up just long enough to note the confusion on the other man’s face. “The concept that any wave can be expressed as a function of different degrees of sine and cosine functions. It’s relatively simple to understand, but the practice can be rather...challenging.”

    “Riiiiiight. Math and shit. Not really my thing, actually… I’m a biologist.”

    Hermann looked up once more, a puzzled expression spreading over his face. “Really? I had assumed you were a physicist or engineer based upon your shirt.”

    Newt stared at Hermann for a few seconds. He obviously didn’t understand the other man’s intent until he actually remembered what he was wearing, and promptly erupted into emphatic laughter. “N- no, man. D- dark s-side of the m-moon… it’s freakin’ Pink Floyd.”

    Hermann blinked owlishly at Newt at first, watching the amusement in the biologist’s face. He ducked his head down into the textbook and waited out the waves of laughter as he felt his face growing redder. Finally, as Newt appeared once more in control of himself, Hermann muttered, barely loud enough for the biologist to distinguish, “I believe I’ve missed a reference. Is that a movie? A band?”

    “It’s a band, Hermann. It’s... fine, you’re fine man. You don’t seem the type to listen to Pink Floyd anyways.” Newt seemed slightly conciliatory, though the image was mostly ruined by the tears still coming from his previous cachinnation.

    “I will admit, I don’t believe I’ve heard of them. I’ve found that I tend to miss most references. Perhaps I’m too young to know of them?” Hermann suggested, resolutely staring down a formula within the text.

    “I guess… I mean… we were both born after their time. I just had an uncle who was really into old rock.” Newt settled back into his spine-bending position, clearly relaxed.

    “Ah. Then I suppose I can only apologize.” Hermann gathered his text and papers to a bundle in his arms. “Excuse me.” Hermann took long, quick strides to the door of the flat’s bedroom, clearly fleeing the conversation.

    Newt sat up once more at the sudden movement. “You alright, man?”

    “Everything’s fine, Newt. Just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Do you speak German?  
>  *Yes, but not enough to hold a conversation
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter! This fic is finished and we will be uploading once a week, every Friday from now on. Please rate and review! Constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you all for the support that you've given us so far! Here is the next chapter, as promised. This chapter does have a bit of sex in it, but it's really vague. Also, there is quite a bit more German in this chapter. The translations will be in the ending notes, same as last time. Enjoy!

     Newt really should have tried to make the lab look at least a bit presentable before the new guy was supposed to show up. He meant to, like he seriously meant to but shit gets in the way, you know? And by shit he meant, well, sleep. Sleep got in the way. There were certain things that everyone knows shouldn’t be done. You shouldn’t chug Everclear at a party filled with strangers, you shouldn’t ever touch Kaiju blood with your bare hands, and you shouldn’t _ever_ go fifty hours straight in a lab, managing to keep awake only through an unhealthy mixture of Red Bull and Power Bars. When Newt could no longer see straight he finally decided the smart thing to do would be to get a bit of sleep so he didn’t look dead when his new partner showed. He would have tidied up if he felt like he could have managed without passing out or breaking something, but unfortunately that seemed out of the question. With much more effort than he would ever care to admit, Newt dragged himself from his work space to a small couch off to the side of the lab, his notes still scattered on the floor. But Hey! At least they were _near_ his desk. Ten points for effort, right?

     It took nearly no time for Newt to be out cold once his body hit the cushions and he managed to pile as many blankets he could onto himself. After what only felt like seconds he was being prodded in the back by something hard. “Wha- whaddayouwant?” Newt mumbled from under his small mountain of comforters. He was still half asleep, and not really aware of his surroundings, so much so that he didn’t catch any of what the man who had been doing the prodding was saying, aside from a name. Hermann. In his half asleep daze Newt half thought he was back in college and tried to get Hermann to let him sleep for longer, just as he always had. “Not n- now Herms, m’sleepin…” he muttered and stirred slightly under the covers, but something was not right. ‘Wait...’ He thought to himself as he began to toss the blankets off as quickly as he could. The man who had introduced himself as Hermann was already speaking again, but Newt wasn’t listening. The moment he got a look at who was staring down at him he jumped up and exclaimed “Wait..wait…. Hermann? _Hermann?!_ Dude, it’s me, man. Newt… you… remember me, right?” Hermann was obviously not nearly as pleased to see Newt again as Newt had been to see him.

     “Ah, yes. I recall. Still a layabout, then? Can’t be bothered to organize your space even when it includes noxious chemicals?” he muttered venomously.

     “Sorry, man… I’ve been working fifty hours straight… If I’d know it would be you I would have cleaned up some more…” Newt mumbled, trying to straighten up the space on the couch he had just been occupying. “How… how have you been?” He asked with a weak smile, extending his hand and then lowering it awkwardly once he realized Hermann was making no move for it.

     “I’ve been perfectly adequate, _Dr_. Geiszler. At least, I would _assume_ that you’ve managed to scrape together at least one PhD since last we met.”

     “Six actually…” Newt said quietly. The more Hermann spoke the more he wished he could crawl into a hole and not have to deal with this situation “and then I taught at MIT for a while, until I ended up here…”

     “Quite excellent for you then, Dr. Geiszler. Good to know you’ve managed to turn yourself into something that resembles productive.” With a glance at Newt’s attire, he added, “Though I note whatever you’ve become is still certainly not professional.”

     “Right… Dude, why are you being such a dick? We used to be… I mean…”

OoOoO

     “--God, you can’t even be bothered to keep your clothes off of my side of the room, much less clean! God, how are you an adult? Wait, that’s right, you’re a _geistig behinderte Kind_ who can’t be bothered to even _pretend_ to be a functional human being! _Gott im Himmel_ , you’ve worn the same _lächerlich_ shirt for the entirety of our acquaintance. _Mein Gott_!”

     “Oh what the hell ever, Hermann. I’m just now unpacking, okay! Jeez, do you _ever_ shut the hell up! Seriously all you ever do is yell and talk about math. It’s getting old and boring as shit, man! I don’t wanna hear it anymore!” Newt had tried to finish picking up all his shit before Hermann got back. It wasn’t his fault that whatever the hell class he’d been at got cut short! “Honestly, Herman, I am so sick of hearing about how I’m ‘Disgusting’ and ‘Immature’!” he yelled over at the other man, who was just _standing_ in the doorway, like he was incapable of moving until Newts god forsaken shirt was off the middle line of the floor. “Are you gonna stand in the doorway gaping at me or are you gonna come in?”

     “No, I clearly will choose to wait until all hours of the night to come back in like a certain _ständig stockbesoffen Depp_ that I might know. You know, just because you can drink here doesn’t mean you must attempt to drink your weight in _Bier jeden verdammten Nacht_. At least I talk about math, you know, the subject that I came to this _Gott verdammt Universität_ to study. Do you even _have_ a textbook yet, Geiszler? Do you expect to pass your classes with help from _die Feen_? I’d rather be boring than such an _exponential_ failure.”

     “Yeah, I’m only the second youngest student to _ever_ be admitted to MIT, but obviously that means I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Just because some stuffy asshole thinks I’m an idiot doesn’t mean I am. I’m doing really well here; I just also want to have some fun! You know, with _people_! You know what people are, right Hermann?”

     “Yes! They are colleagues, acquaintances, friends and _distractions_. Clearly, since you haven’t managed to unpack in an entire week!”

     Newt stood up and made his way to the doorway where Hermann was still just _standing_ and prodded his chest with his pointer. “You’re just pissed that people actually _like_ me and I’ve only been here a week, unlike you!”

     “I couldn’t care less what any of these…” he fumbled for the word, English clearly failing him _again._ “Plebeians think of me! I don’t care, I just want to get an education and leave the rest of the idiots in the dust!”

     “I don’t care about your whole ‘I’m the most brilliant man alive’ bullshit. We _both_ know that you’re just a sad, insecure _child_ with no friends!”

     “ _I’m_ a child? At least I have some understanding of the correct priorities!”

     “No Hermann, you’re a child because you refuse to feel anything besides that stick up your ass!”

     The next few things that happened, happened very fast and years later Newt couldn’t accurately give a play by play on how they made it from screaming to kissing in two seconds flat. He couldn’t say how they managed to make it to his bed without tripping over his stuff that was still scattered all over the floor, and he couldn’t say why Hermann didn’t push him away because well… he had no idea. With clumsy hands an obviously inexperienced Newt began to unbutton Hermann’s shirt and moved his lips from the mathematician’s mouth to his neck.

     “ _Ja! Halten Sie tun das!”_ Hermann exclaimed loudly. Newt had no freaking clue what the man underneath him had just yelled, but it sounded good so he kept going. Down his neck, then chest, then back up to his mouth. He was almost certain that he had left at least one deep purple mark on Hermann’s throat, but he still wasn’t complaining so Newt felt absolutely fine in continuing. It wasn’t until a few moments later when he rolled his hips forward that he actually understood the gravity of what was going on. He let out a loud guttural moan and slid down just enough to get Hermann at least most of the way out of his slacks, then Newt somehow managed to get out of his own jeans, which his tossed on the floor, followed by his shirt. He didn’t realize how much either of them was shaking until he was laying flush against his roommate, both of them in nothing but boxers.

     “Christ Hermann…” Newt said through a breathy moan when he felt hips moving up against his. _Clearly_ he wasn’t the only one who wanted this.

     “ _Nicht aufhören, Newt, wage es nicht zu stoppen!_ ” Hermann yelled. Now _that_ was something that Newt could understand perfectly.

     “W- wouldn’t dream o-of it” he responded, pressing his lips against the mathematician's firmly. Everything was going so fast and between their hips, which were each rolling against the others frantically, and the harsh pressure of their lips and the heat of skin on skin. It was too much for them and with a final cry of each other’s names, it was over just as abruptly as it began. Newt collapsed onto the bed next to Hermann almost instantly, still a complete panting mess. A few moments of nothing but their heavy breathing passed before Newt broke the almost-silence. “H-hermann?” He said so quietly it could hardly be heard above the sounds of heavy breathing “A- are you… alright?”

     “I...that’s one word for it.” A beat. “I...think we proved that I can feel something other than....”

     “Ha, yeah we did, I guess… that was… what was that?” Newt let out a breathless laugh. and ran his fingers through his hair. _Holy shit_ he had just had sex with his stuffy awkward people hating roommate… and it was _awesome_.

     “I don’t know...any ideas?” Hermann responded, still slightly out of breath.

     “No…” Newt replied, “not a clue… but… I liked it. It’s just… you _hate_ me… We were just saying some fucking awful things to each other… which I’m sorry about, just by the way…”

     “S’fine, don’t worry...” Hermann said quietly, an obvious blush creeping onto his face  “How much of that did you understand?”

     “I.. erm… “Newt said, sitting up so he could grab a change of clothes. “I understood enough. Look, I’m really sorry to run right after… _that,_ but I have a class in like ten minutes.” He grabbed the jeans he was wearing off of the floor and a shirt (a different one, thank you very much) and a change of boxers. “I’ll be back around four. Will you be around?” He asked while he quickly began tossing clothes on. “I feel like I should like… take you out to dinner or _something_. I mean jeez… anyways…”

     “I have my engineering seminar and someone wanted to do a study group...but I suppose I could pass on it. We should...probably talk.”

     “You are right, Hermann… you are very right. We need to talk, but not now.” Newt checked his watch and swore loudly. “I really have to go. See you around!” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Hermann’s forehead before grabbing his bag and running out the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *mentally retarded child  
>  *God in heaven  
>  *ridiculous  
>  *My God  
>  *constantly wasted idiot  
>  *beer every damn night  
>  *God damn university  
>  *the fairies  
>  *God! Keep doing that!  
>  *Don't stop, Newt, don't you dare stop!
> 
> Thanks for keeping up with this fic, guys! Seriously, it means a lot. Once again, feel free to rate and review and stuff!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thanks again for keeping up with this fic. The positive reviews that we've been getting really mean a lot! 2 things about this chapter. Number 1: It is relatively short, but do not fear! Next weeks is very long. Number 2: I just want to make sure no one gets confused. Most chapters have one section in the present followed by one flashback. This chapter only changes POV, so no flashbacking this time. We make up for it in next weeks though. I promise!   
> Enjoy~

     “ _Here we stand, Worlds apart Hearts broken in two, two, two! Sleepless nights. Losing ground I'm reaching for you, you, you!_ ”  It was four in the afternoon three months later and Newt had been in the lab since midnight of the previous day. Needless to say he had been lacking motivation, and motivation always came best in the form of Journey, because like he’d been trying to tell Hermann for months, Journey got him pumped! He was so lost in his work and screaming the lyrics loudly that he didn’t hear the door open or the annoyed huff that came immediately from his lap partner upon entering.

“Do you mind?” Hermann interjected in the snobbiest way he possibly could. Newt was so used to Hermann yelling at him about his music that he didn’t even look up from his work. Instead he chose to sing even louder then he had been before. Usually this worked when Hermann realized that he just was not going to win.

“ _Someday love will find you. Break those chains that bind you. One night will remind you. How we touched and went our separate ways!_ ”  He yelled into the notebook he was currently scribbling in, making sure to tap his feet loudly to the rhythm of the song.

“Could you perhaps turn down that racket? Some people are attempting to work.” Hermann nearly snarled. Newt could hear the tap of his cane getting closer but honestly, he didn’t care. Not anymore. He had been trying to be friendly to his lab partner for months but Hermann just hated him for no reason! If anything Newt felt like he should have been the one that was pissed, but at least he was trying to keep civil. He began to scratch at his forearm absentmindedly.

“Thats it, Dude. I’ve tried being nice, I really have. Fuck this. What the hell is your problem? It’s just music! It’s not like it’s hard to ignore! If I wasn’t playing this then we would just have a bunch of noise from the rest of the damn building! It’s not like anywhere here is quiet!”

“At least that noise is the sound of professionals being productive with their time, not this cacophonous clamor! By Jove, it’s as though you are actually allergic to acting like a fully-functional adult!”

     “Yes Hermann. I’m allergic to acting like an adult. What are you, six? Why are you such a damn asshole, seriously. What did I ever do to you! You know what! I don’t even care. Shut the hell up and just work, man.” With a frustrated groan, Newt turned back to his books and went back to singing. “ _Troubled tiiiiimes Caught between confusion and pain, pain, pain! Distant eyes. Promises we made were in vain! In vaaaaiiiinnnn! Vain!"_

     “For God’s sake...” Hermann muttered, limping his way to Newts laptop and forcefully shutting off the music.

     “Dude, what the hell!” Newt reached over and turned Journey straight back on and looked Hermann dead in the eye “ _SOMEDAY LOVE WILL FIND YOU. BREAK THOSE CHAINS THAT BIND YOU. ONE NIGHT WILL REMIND YOU HOW WE TOUCHED AND WENT OUT SEPARATE WAYS!_ ” He was too caught up in the moment to notice that fact that Hermanns nostrils were flaring or that the hand gripping his cane was shaking, knuckles white. “ _IF HE EVER HURTS YOU, TRUE LOVE WON”T DESERT YOU. YOU KNOW I STILL LOVE YOU, THOUGH WE TOUCHED AND WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS!_ ”

     “FINE THEN!” He turned and limped to the door as fast as he could manage. “I’ll return when the lab is prepared for ADULT OCCUPANTS. Enjoy your _Quest_ or _Travels_ or whatever the hell it’s called!”

     “Awesome…” Newt muttered under his breath “Enjoy that stick you have shoved up your ass!”  he yelled after Hermann, trying to get the last word in. The annoyed biologist was done sitting back and letting some asshole insult his job and well… everything else about him. Oh. It was so on.

OoOoO

     From approximately five feet from the door, Hermann could hear Newt’s music clearly enough to make out certain words and most of the guitar line. The music itself could be heard from almost fifteen feet, considering the relative disuse of the surrounding area. Most nearby rooms were labs. Most labs were empty and quiet, especially compared to a certain biologist currently singing at the top of his lungs to Infield or Upfield or something.

     Some days, when he was feeling particularly tired or stressed or unwilling to deal with the perpetual noise, Hermann would turn around and return to his bunk and the (much smaller) chalkboard he had installed within. Other times, approaching the door, Hermann would hear the blissful quiet and try to throw himself into his work enough that when Dr. Gieszler arrived, he wouldn’t be able to hear the music as clearly (it rarely worked). Today, though, he had no choice. His report was due to the Marshall in person promptly at eleven o’clock, and he still had a few revisions to the calculations before his final draft.

     Hermann took one steadying breath before reaching for the handle, a tradition he had maintained every day since his arrival in Hong Kong three months previously. _Gott, gib mir Kraft_. He opened the door and immediately turned to his chalkboards, trying his best to ignore the biologist caterwauling along to the “music.” A few minutes passed, and the song changed a few times. Hermann attempted to suppress the knowledge that the band remained the same.

     “Sooooo…” the biologist interrupted, apropos nothing. Hermann began gritting his teeth in preparation for the coming insanity. “Sorry about your wife, dude. Just saw today.” The chalk stuttered against the board and nearly dropped from his fingers. After a moment to process what his lab partner had just announced, Hermann’s face grew cold and hard.

     “And what, pray tell, do you seem to think you know about Vanessa?”

     “Her affair with that actor guy… Bartholomew or something. You can’t have known about it for long before now but… everyone that pays attention to the media knows. She isn’t exactly keeping it quiet.”

     Could...Of course not. Hermann trusted Vanessa. Yes, she got lonely in England, but she was rather busy, and even then it was not anywhere near safe in Hong Kong. After all, she was pregnant with his child, and they did speak at least once a week through video, generally more, and she was definitely not cheating on him with...Bartholomew? Newt could have the decency to do a little better than that with his fake name.

     “Dr. Gieszler, I don’t know what you are talking about and find your accusations as wild as they are preposterous. If you’re going to make up a name, at least put some effort into it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

     “What?!” At least the man’s acting was slightly better than his creativity. Hermann had to applaud his dedication. “Dude, why the hell would I make this up! It’s such a stupid thing to lie about, do you seriously not know? Mako reads the magazine that was blabbing about it in, picture of her in full lip lock with what’s his face included. She left it in here.” He began franetically moving papers, notebooks, and anatomical sketches in his quest for the magazine. After accidentally displacing an entire forest’s worth of paper onto the floor, Newt still had not managed to produce the tabloid in question. “Wait a minute… she was on the couch…” He stood and waddled over to the couch, legs obviously sore from their previous awkward position. “Here! Right freaking here!” Newt tossed the issue of The Sun at a flustered Hermann, the magazine flopping at the scientist’s feet.

     Hermann looked down at the tabloid for only a second before pushing it aside with his cane. “I’m not going to do myself the indignity of literally stooping to your level, Dr. Geiszler. I trust my wife and kindly ask that you keep her out of any disagreements we might have.” Four limping steps brought him face to face with the flummoxed biologist, occupied by scratching frenetically at his arm. “She is far greater an individual than you could ever dream to be, Dr. Geiszler. And I ask you not. To forget. As much.”  Each pause was punctuated with a heavy slam of his cane upon the metal floor. “I trust her. Far more than I trust you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *God give me strength
> 
> Also, the song we were quoting was "Worlds Apart (Separate Ways)" By Journey, and the band that Hermann was attempting to name was The Outfield. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading! And as always, please rate and review and spread the word!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is a long one, as promised. Nothing really new to say this week except thanks for keeping up with this fic! And thanks again for all the positive reviews we've been getting. Enjoy, and as always, there will be translations at the bottom.

     It was a good day. Darmstadt was fairly warm for late June, around 22°C with clear blue skies and a light breeze as Hermann walked back to the flat.  In fact, it was nice enough that he took a slightly less efficient path than normal; just to bask in the rare sun. When he entered the building, he uncharacteristically chatted for a few moments with the landlady before mounting the stairs to his shared flat, hoping that Newt might be there to join in his spectacular mood.

     He opened the door in a manner that he would have denied as bubbly and glanced around the room. There was no sign of Newt or his bag, and Hermann would have heard strains of rock if Newt were there. With a small sigh, he began unpacking his bag, returning the textbook and notebook for the class he had just finished to their proper positions on his bookshelf before grabbing the text for his math course and his laptop, choosing to study in the bedroom instead of at his desk on a whim.

     He settled into the mattress with his textbook and pulled up the soundtrack from [_Die Walküre_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Walk%C3%BCre), his favorite recording of his favorite Wagner operas. While the tenor voicing Siegmund was adequate at best, Monica Schwartz had voiced Br[ü](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Walk%C3%BCre)nhilde. That was reason enough to listen by itself.

     Perhaps two hours had passed, enough time to get to the opening of the third act and thus “Walkürenrit.” Suddenly, amidst the high, fierce voices of the Valkyries, Hermann was aware of a door closing and a male voice occasionally doubling parts. When the bedroom door opened and it became clear that Newt was singing along to the opera, Hermann couldn’t  help but look up from the book. It didn’t appear that Newt had even noticed he was singing as he dropped his bag upon the floor and collapsed bonelessly upon his bed.

     Perhaps it was just the shock of hearing Newt sing, or singing along to an opera, or singing to a woman’s part, but Hermann couldn’t help but cut off the Valkyries’ boasting. “Are you...how do you know this?”

     Newt seemed thrown off, as though he had been unaware that music was even playing. “What?... _Oh,_ the music. Are you kidding?” he responds when it finally registers, shrugging.  “I was there when she recorded that, I’ve heard this opera a million times over.”

     “You...you were there?” Hermann asks, more than slightly confounded by Newt’s response.

     “Yeah, I mean… you _are_ listening to my mom. This was recorded last time I saw her. It must have been like nine years ago. I was only about...eight , I think. I don’t remember too much of that but I do remember not knowing enough German to understand anything her manager was saying… and they gave me a lot of coffee.”

     Hermann was doing his best impression of a beached fish. “You mean, that is to say, your mother was one of the Valkyries?”

“Yeah, she’s Br[ü](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Walk%C3%BCre)nhilde in this production.”

     For a few seconds, Hermann attempted to force sound out of his mouth, relatively unsuccessfully. “ _Oh...Oh mein_ Gott _! Deine_ Mutter _ist Monica Schwartz! Ich kann es nicht glauben!_ ” Hermann collapsed backward onto the bed. “ _Sie ist spektakulär! Sie ist erstaunlich! Sie hat die Stimme vom einem Engel! Sie ist deine Mutter! Diene_ Mutter!” He took a moment, trying to calm down enough to remember his English. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

     Newt looked at Hermann and laughed a little “It's fine, man. I understood you for the most part but… yeah. That’s my mom.”

     “Your mother is a national treasure and one of the most talented dramatic sopranos of our generation.”

     “...When you put it like that…” Newt rubbed the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed by Hermann’s unabashed adoration. “I guess I never really thought it was a big deal. Like I said, I haven’t seen her in a while… she’s actually coming to visit me since I’m so close by and it’s been… years. You’ll meet her when she comes over. I was gonna make her dinner or something.”

     “She’s coming here? To this flat?” Hermann bolted upright and began moving frantically. “We need to clean, need to put things away...I haven’t washed the dishes in two days! God, we’re living like animals!”

     “Dude, calm the hell down!” Newt was clearly struggling to maintain composure now, amazingly amused by Hermann’s almost instantaneous reaction. “I didn’t say she was coming _now_! I haven’t even called her since I made it here.”

     “Right, yes, of course,” Hermann replied, setting down the articles of clothing he had managed to gather in the few seconds of activity. Normally, he would return to his mathematics, but today…“So, how was your day, Newt?” He inquired as he settled once again.

     The biologist appeared legitimately surprised by the question. “Oh, erm.. It was good! I went to lunch with some guy from one of my classes. We had some real good burgers.”

     “You sound surprised. You do know why they are called _Hambu_ \--”

     “Yes, Hermann. I’m aware. They were just _really_ good.”

     “What was the place called? Perhaps we could get lunch there some day,” Hermann suggested, deciding to push his luck on what was essentially the best day of his life, so far.

     The something stallion, I dunno.” Hermann felt a blush begin to rise in his cheeks. “It was only a few blocks away from here.”

     “The...Painted Stallion?” Hermann asked, very much hoping that Newt was mistaken.

     “That sounds right, yeah,” Newt responded offhandedly.

     “Ah. I suppose, then...nevermind.” Perhaps not the best day, then.

     “Is… something wrong with that bar? It seemed pretty nice…”

     The mathematician leveled a look at his flatmate, trying to indicate that he would not fall for the innocent routine. Newt just looked horrendously confused. After a sigh, Hermann elaborated: “There is nothing wrong with the bar itself, just...If you want to sleep with someone, no questions asked, you invite them to The Painted Stallion. But, I suppose, I’m hardly your keeper. You are free to do what you want.” Definitely not even close to the best day.

     Newt sits up and looks at Hermann, clearly shocked. “Wait, wait… what? _Free?_ I think I may have gotten the wrong impression from...this” He makes some sort of gesture between the two of them, stumbling over the statement. “But dude, just because I like good bar food doesn’t mean I’m gonna have sex with some guy I hardly know…”

     “You hardly knew me.”

     Newt stood and walked over to Hermann’s bed, sitting next to the mathematician’s form. “Look Herm… Hermann. You’re different, okay? I don’t actually… know what happened with you. I had never done anything like that before… What kind of person do you think I am, man?”

     “I...I am sorry, Newt. I did not mean to offend you. Perhaps now is a good time for that talk we mentioned, ja?”

     “Yeah…” Newt tentatively placed a hand on Hermann’s back. “You know… we would have gotten this done earlier if you hadn’t stared at the floor the whole time the other night when we went to dinner… You said you were fine so I assumed you were...fine.”

     “I...sorry, it was just loud and public, and...and I was fine. Fine with, whatever you wanted us to be.” Both were silent for a moment. “So...does that mean that we…?”

     “Yeah, Hermann…”

     “And, no one else…?”

     “Just us.”

     “And we can do...that a lot more?”

     “That…?”

     “Ah...the um...sex.”

     “Oh.” Newt chuckled, low. “Yeah, Hermann. We can do _that_.”

     “And when you go for hamburgers at The Painted Stallion…”

     “I’m just going for burgers. You can even come with if you want. Make sure Michael and I don’t get too close. Leave room for Jesus and all that shit.”

     “No, that’s alright.” Hermann’s hand sought out one of Newt’s. “I trust you.” After a second thought, he added “‘Leave room for Jesus’?”

     “Just a phrase. I meant… you could just make sure that we aren’t getting too close.”

     “Ah. Well, you know, I’m Jewish. I’d rather not...leave room.” So he didn’t, and he was quite happy with the situation as a result.

OoOoO

     It felt as though Hermann blinked and Newt disappeared. One moment, he was there and Hermann was furious, the next the man was simply gone, vanished into the ether. Of course, if anything that only made Hermann more enraged; how dare Newt just leave after making those horrible, unfounded accusations? He had no right to just leave! If he chose to mock Hermann’s relationship with his wife, he had better well accept the consequences!

     It wasn’t that Hermann had a perfect relationship with Vanessa. They were both very busy, and they had agreed early on that she would stay in England no matter what. If he wanted to see her, he would find a way to get to her, not the other way around, and that complicated things. Occasionally he would...worry, but he trusted her. He definitely trusted her. They loved each other. Of course he trusted her.

     It couldn’t do any harm to look at the magazine, then. She wasn’t cheating on him, Newt was certainly lying, so it couldn’t hurt. It would just be another good reason to despise Newt. There was no reason not to look. If anything, if he trusted her, he _would_ look. After all, he was sure that Newt was lying, that Vanessa loved him, that she was faithful. The magazine had to be unrelated or doctored. There was no other option.

     Hermann turned to face the tabloid, lying discarded upon the floor, pages open to a randomly, one corner bent.

     He wasn’t making sure that Vanessa wasn’t...He was just making sure that Newt was lying. And Newt was definitely lying, certainly lying. This was just checking on _him_ , not on _her_.

     He took one step and it felt like he was moving through some non-Newtonian fluid, like the air itself was attempting to maintain his stationary position. The second step was easier, and the third almost returned to normal difficulty. By the time he reached the magazine, his steps had resumed their normal pattern. He looked down at the open page and didn’t recognize the celebrity being discussing for “Her Weight Loss: How She Dropped the Weight in 3 Easy Steps that You Can Do at Home!”

     He picked it up and almost dropped it twice, as his hands were shaking visibly and to the extent that his grip was not to be trusted. He closed the magazine, folding the damaged pages back into their rightful place, careful to not look at the front cover. He watched the back page intently, almost willing the perfume (cosmetics? He wasn’t sure) advertisement to announce Vanessa’s fidelity and Newt’s deception.

     Tentatively, he flipped the book around to the cover. “Sleepless Haights: Why Bart says things with Vanessa just couldn’t work (But he misses her anyway)” spread across the front along with a picture of ‘Nessa, Hermann’s ‘Nessa, in the dress she had worn to the NTAs two years ago holding hands with a man in the tux, the picture looking ripped in half between the two.

     Numbly, Hermann flipped the pages to where the article went more in depth. After two sentences (“Actor Bartholomew Haight and his model girlfriend of four years, Vanessa Kepler, called it quits yesterday. ‘She just wanted more commitment than I was comfortable with at this stage in my life,’ the actor said when asked to comment ‘She wanted to get married, and I get it, she’s pregnant, she wants to nest. I’m not saying I don’t want our child in my life, I’m just saying I don’t want him to _be_ my life.’”) he walked over to his desk chair and sat down heavily, head hunched over the cane gripped tightly in one hand, the magazine curled tightly in his fist. He took a breath and then another, and another.

     He opened his fist and looked at the cover again, checking to see if the photo had been altered. He knew that dress quite well; he had visited her during one of her fittings for it and she had looked like perfection. Graceful and strong, willowy and confident, she seemed to glow with an aura of happiness that day. He knew that dress, if none of her others. And, try as he might, he couldn’t find any evidence of tampering on the part of the periodical or his lab partner.

     He took another breath, focusing on keeping it deep and even, solid and steady. He was fine, it was fine, there was nothing wrong. It was a publicity stunt. Or...something like that. It had to be, there was no other possibility.

 _Well, that’s not quite true_ , a traitorous voice whispered. _You’re a scientist, use your logic_. If it was a publicity stunt, it wouldn’t have gone on for quite so long. On the other hand, four years ago, Vanessa had started becoming much busier. She had started telling him “no” when he asked to come back to visit her. She had started becoming more distant. She had begun drifting away from Hermann.

     His breath stuttered as his head fell onto the back of the hand clutching his cane. He was fooling himself and doing a poor job of it. She hadn’t been his for a long time. She was still his wife, but he felt like she had left him a long time before. They never spoke, never saw each other. Frankly, had she died he likely would have heard of it through the condolences of his colleagues. She had left him so long ago, and he had been blind to it the whole time.

      And that, by itself, would have been fine. Hermann knew how to compartmentalize, and when the world was ending, a cheating and distant wife just wasn’t important. He would have pushed it aside, perhaps e-mailed her to ask for a divorce and faxed any paperwork needed to make it official. Honestly, he would have been perfectly fine but for one thing: she had never said a word.

     She had just...given up, and never said anything. Without warning, she had just decided independently to stop being a part of his life. She had left him, knowing full well that he had no one else in the world but her, and she hadn’t even been kind enough to tell him that he was completely alone. Instead, she’d told him that she was pregnant, and he had felt more complete, more settled with her than ever.

     He hadn’t been alone like that for a long time, not since he was a teenager, not since, well...not since Newt. And here he was again, alone and lost and uncertain, and he still had absolutely no one that he could speak to. “You’ll never know how alone you’ve made yourself until you need someone, Dr. Gottlieb,” a graduate student had once told him after he turned down her request for a date when still at Cambridge.

     She was right, of course. After Newt, all those years ago, he hadn’t had anyone to talk to and he still didn’t. Being perfectly honest, the person closest to him was probably Newt; the man had at least had the decency to tell him that his wife had been gone for four years. How utterly depressing was that, the fact that _Newt_ of all people was the closest Hermann had to a friend after all of these years? Newt would probably laugh if Hermann told him that, and he wouldn’t want to hear Hermann talk about his wife’s infidelity moments after being accused of fabricating evidence to support as much.

     No, Hermann was, quite suddenly, amazingly, spectacularly, breathtakingly alone, gone from a married man to a mathematical hermit in approximately five minutes.

     He cried for the first time since he was a child, lost adrift in a sea of monsters.

OoOoO

 

     It had been a good day for Newt. Really good. In fact, it was so great that he was actually humming when he unlocked the door to his dorm and practically sprinted to the bedroom. “Hey Herms” He said happily as he tossed his book bag onto the floor. It wasn’t until he had already sat down next to his boyfriend that he noticed something was wrong. “Hey… you alright Hermann? You look a little… off.”

     “I’m fine,” Hermann said quietly. If Newt hadn’t been expecting an answer he wasn’t sure he would have heard him speak at all.

     “I’m not stupid, man. Obviously something is wrong”

     “Everything is fine, Newt. Don’t worry.”

     Newt sighed and placed a hand on Hermann’s shoulder. “Look… you can talk to me about shit. You know that, right?”

     “I’m _fine_ Newt!” Newt had… not been expecting that.

     “Wait! Did I do something?” He called after Hermann, who had just practically ripped his arm away from his grip as he got off the bed. “If this is about the clothes that were on the floor this morning I’m sorry! I picked them up…”

     “I said it’s fine, Newt! It doesn’t have anything to do with you! Just...leave it alone!”

     “You’re not okay, man…” He hadn’t been particularly worried about this until he heard Hermann’s voice crack. Newt had never seen him actually upset before. “Just come sit back down… talk to me…”

     “No! I mean-- _Verdammt!_ I didn’t mean to yell at you, Newt. I just...I need some air. I’m going to take a walk.” There was no way Newt was gonna let Hermann walk out that damn door. He got up and reached out to take the taller man’s hand

     “Come sit back down…tell me what’s wrong…”

     “Look, it’s not anything to do with you, I just...Newt, I need a moment to settle myself” He mumbled as Newt led him back to the bed.

     “It’s alright…” Newt muttered “just know that you can talk to me if something’s wrong…”

     Hermann sat down and let out a sigh “Honestly, Newt. I’m fine. This...this happens often enough that I’m more than used to it.”

     “What happens often enough? If you’re upset it isn’t fine…”

     “It really isn’t anything...and the more I say that the more concerned you get, right?” Hermann paused for a moment, but Newt didn’t shift his gaze “My father called...”

     “Oh.” Newt mumbled. “Was he angry with you?”

     Hermann rolled his eyes and scoffed “What do you suppose?”

     “Hey, man…” Newt said, removing his hand from Hermann’s shoulder “You can be pissed at me all you want, but it won’t make you feel any better.”

     “I’m not angry at you, Newt. I’m...I’m sorry. It’s just. I’m used to dealing with this by myself. I know, you’re just trying to help.”

     “Yeah dude, so let me help. I really hate feeling so freakin’ useless when I _know_ something’s wrong.”

     It seemed like Newt had finally won, because Hermann opened his mouth to speak “Alright. Okay, Alright. And no, my father wasn’t angry at first. Things started off perfectly civilized. He asked how my classes were, and I said they were doing very well, that I’d been studying very hard and making top marks in every subject. Things were...fine. Until he remembered that I’d have a new roommate by now. He asked about you.”

     “Shit man, you didn’t tell him about… us, did you?!”

     “No. There was a part of me that wanted to, but I knew that was...not a good idea. I told him we were friends and he went…I don’t know the word in English. _Wütend_.”

     “He got pissed because… you made friends with someone you have to _live_ with?” Newt asked, eyebrow raised. That… didn’t make a lot of sense to him. I mean, he’d never had many friends himself but he didn’t think his dad would object to him being out of the house more if that came with the whole ‘friends’ thing.

     “I...you remember the first time we...before that, you remember what I said about people? That they are ‘colleagues, acquaintances, friends, and--’”

     “Distractions… Yeah… so that’s where you get that from…”

     “I’m not allowed to have distractions. I’m supposed to be excellent, and that means total focus. So saying that you and I were getting along, that we were friendly...it was a mistake. It was my fault, I could have kept him from yelling at me and I chose not to. I knew that he would be angry.”

     “It’s not your fault that your dad’s a dick, man. Seriously, I’m not causing you to do any worse in school. I know I’m not. You would have ditched me already if I was!”

     “I would disagree, but you’re right. But he could be right as well. When you’re top of the class, it can be easy to forget that there is still room to improve and I have been slightly...distracted lately. I’ve been talkative and inefficient and, well, busier than I used to be. I’m sorry, so sorry, but maybe he’s right maybe--”

     Newts face fell instantly and he cut Hermann off mid-sentence “If… that’s what you think… I mean if you’d rather… I’ll back off. I love you, man… I just want you to be happy and shit… I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

     “No, I...what? You what?”

     “It doesn’t matter…” Newt mumbled, trying to look anywhere but at Hermann.

     “It matters. What did you say?”

     “I said that I love you. I thought that was clear… Now like I said… I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time..” Saying that hurt… so much more than he thought words could, especially since he was aware that Hermann probably thought he sounded like an idiot.

     Hermann paused and Newt was _so freakin sure_ he was either about to get his ass handed to him, or get laughed out of the room. “Do you really mean that, what you’re saying. That’s...that’s really how you feel?”

     “Yeah…” He muttered under his breath. “Doesn’t matter…”

     “Newt...Newt look at me. Of course it matters. I...my father has never said that to me, not even once, and even my mother never told me that she wanted me happy. My life, my entire life, it’s been a question of pride, duty, respect, ability, never happiness.” Hermann stopped and took a deep breath “Maybe...maybe I should try something new. Think about myself for once. Think about you.”

     Newt wasn’t gonna lie...that response took him... completely by surprise. “I..if that’s what you want… I don’t wanna cause you trouble, Herm.”

     “What my father doesn’t know can’t hurt him, ja? And I fully intend to stay on top of every class.”

     “I’m sure you will, you’re smart… alright. Alright, we’ll be fine.” Newt leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on Hermann’s forehead. “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him...”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Oh my God, your mother is Monica Schwartz! I can't even think!  
> *She's spectacular! She's so amazing! Her voice is like an angel! She’s your mother! Your mother!  
> *Dammit   
> *furious
> 
> Thanks for reading! Keep on reviewing and all that jazz!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Sorry that this is getting uploaded so much later in the day then usual. I went on a pointless adventure to go see a douche bag comic book buyer...but anyways, this chapter is shorter than our last one, but not too bad. Nothing really new to report other than that. Enjoy!

     “Fantastic, Dr. Geiszler. I think you may have set a new record, less than a minute to offend someone this time!” Hermann spat the moment they entered the lab. They had just encountered one of the new jaeger pilots, who by the way was totally one of Newts heroes, and he’d noticed the tattoos pretty quickly.

     “Oh shut up, dude. I don’t care what you have to say.” And honestly, he didn’t. They had been arguing all freaking day and Newt was sick of it.  

“Yes, well, it would appear that the pilot appeared to care what _you_ said. When will you realize that those tattoos are offensive eyesores?”

“Just because you don’t understand them, doesn’t mean they suck, Hermann. Seriously, mind your own business.” Sure, he’d at some point explain to Raleigh that he wasn’t meaning to be offensive, because he knew that they could possibly be offensive, especially to him. Not that he was going to let Hermann know that.

“It is my business if I have to look at them every single day! And, _Gott_ , a random sampling of people on the street, even of people _covered_ in tattoos would agree with me! They are offensive and insensitive to the lives of the _millions_ dead!”

“You have no freakin’ clue what they mean, okay? Just shut the hell up so I can do my damn work! I don’t want to hear any more shit about my tattoos!” Newt turned his back to Hermann and attempted arrange his workspace so he had somewhere to put his new specimen, but he couldn’t stop himself from scratching at his left forearm long enough to do so. He didn’t know how much work he would be able to get done though. Hermann was really striking a nerve today…

“I know what they mean! I know _exactly_ what they mean! You have some unhealthy fascination with monsters that are attempting to destroy the entirety of our species! Just because you fail to understand that your _sick obsession_ is capable of hurting others does not justify them!”

“I’m not _obsessed_ with kaiju, Hermann. They’re my fucking job. Leave it the hell alone, I’m serious!”

“No, I will not! There is a real and tangible difference between them being your _job_ and whatever...” Hermann said, swinging his cane in Newts general direction “...You call those. You are such a child! You can’t even comprehend how something you like could be hurting someone else! _Gott,_ I hate you! _Ich hasse dich_!”

Newt froze completely and his face softened for a moment before he shook it off and tried to pull of a decent pissed off expression. “Whatever man…” Right. _He_ , Newt was the one that didn’t understand that he was hurting people. Whatever helped him sleep at night, the asshole. “I’ll just come back later.” And with that, he practically sprinted out of the lab, making sure he slammed the door behind him.

OoOoO

     Hermann woke up slowly. He didn’t get the opportunity to do so very often, but he had allowed himself to do so this particular morning and was rather enjoying it. He could feel the warmth of the German summer sun falling across his face as the sparrows that nested above the window sang into the morning air. He felt a leg pressed against his back and realized that Newt had managed to wake before him this morning and from the scratching sound of his pen was sketching in his book.

     A smile spreading across his face, Hermann turned his face to Newt while blinking open his eyes, the form of the biologist coming into focus after a moment.

     “Good morning, Newt,” Hermann mumbled, still mostly attempting to hang on to his sleep and the most wonderful dream he’d been having that he couldn’t quite remember…

     “Mornin’ Herms” the more conscious one responded, pressing a kiss to the mathematician’s forehead.

     As Newt sat back up, Hermann rose onto his elbows and caught the other boy’s mouth briefly with his own before Newt returned intently to his sketch. Hermann settled back onto the bed and watched as Newt continued to sketch, occasionally glancing up to offer a quick smile.

     After about twenty minutes of watching the biologist, Hermann sat up once again and tried to catch a glimpse at what had Newt so focused, but the book was jerked back before Hermann even had a chance to see what was on the page.

     “Dude, it’s just homework stuff. It isn’t very good,” Newt explained defensively, clutching the book to his chest.

     “Ja, but you haven’t minded if I look at your homework stuff before. Besides, I like to see the ones you don’t like as much,” Hermann responded, snatching the sketchbook away from Newt (If years of older siblings had been good for anything, it was quickly retrieving notebooks from someone else’s hands).

     “I swear, you don’t wanna see them!” Newt responded, grasping for the book as soon as he felt it leave his hands, but he quickly stopped as Hermann saw the subject of the drawing and stiffened.

     “This...is me. You were drawing me?” Hermann said, throwing a glance to Newt who looked beyond embarrassed before looking back to the drawing.

     It was clearly incomplete, but the side of Hermann’s face that was to Newt while he’d been asleep was sketched in exacting detail, and it seemed as though his face was...glowing in the soft sunlight. It was fantastic.

     Hermann flipped back, past minutely accurate sketches of leaves upon branches, Hermann studying, a moth fluttering around a street lamp, Hermann asleep again, the monster from the movie Newt had forced Hermann to watch last weekend, Hermann mounted upon a horse with a sword in his hand fighting a dragon, Hermann smiling, Hermann looking amazingly content with his hair a mess clearly after...ahem, Hermann angry, Hermann looking absolutely devastated after the fight with his father…

     Hermann stopped at a sketch about halfway back through the book, when sketches of him were less frequent and somehow...less. It was him, hunched over his desk, illuminated by the light of his old lamp. His head was bowed deep over the textbooks and sheets of paper, but you could still see his face. His brow was furrowed and drawn together, as though both eyebrows were attempting to join forces and invade the area inhabited by his nose. His eyes were intense, dark, focused like a well-tuned laser upon the work below. The corners of his mouth were turned down into a fierce scowl of consternation. Something about the way Newt had drawn Hermann’s hands seemed to imply furious, forceful motion. Overall, it was hard to tell if Hermann was performing calculations or arguing with the work.

     “When did you draw this one?” he asked, still staring at the drawing as though he meant to memorize it.

     “Oh, that one? Erm… it was just a few days after we met. Sorry if you think that’s creepy or something…”

     “No, I just...this looks like how I see myself. Dark and intense and…”

     “Unhappy?” Newt supplied.

     “Yes. Yes, exactly. I look unhappy here, even though this is what I tell myself I enjoy most. And then there’s this one,” Hermann flips back to the sketch of him looking absolutely debauched. “I look...soft and content and happy here. All of these later ones look happier, more like this. It’s like I’m looking at a progression, seeing how I’ve been gradually been becoming more and more happy, more confident, more content.”

      Hermann settled back onto the incomplete sketch. “And it looks as though...these later sketches, the ones where I look happier, they look better as well. More...careful, more detailed, more emotive. It’s as though you can,” he took a moment, looking back up at Newt to gauge his reaction, “you can see...love. On both sides.”

      Newt gaped for a moment before collecting himself enough to become defensive. “I...well, I don’t assume anything about how you feel, man, I just… I draw what I see… for the most part…You _do_ look happier now. You look so much softer in the pictures because that’s how I see you.”

      Hermann set the book aside on the bed and sat up to look Newt directly in the eye. “I know. I know and I understand now, I think. I’ve finally figured it out. Newt,” he raised a hand to Newt’s cheek with a tentative smile. “Newton Geiszler, _Ich liebe dich_.”

     “I love you too, Hermann,” Newt responded, a note of wonder creeping into his response.

      Hermann shifted his hand around the back of Newt’s neck, pulling the other man into a kiss. And it was soft. And it was content. And it was _happy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I hate you  
> *I love you
> 
> Thanks for reading! As always, reviews are totally welcome! (and encouraged!)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! This is kind of a short one, and more stuff from the movie itself, but please bear with me here. It's necessary, I promise. As always, translations are at the bottom and thank you for reading!

     “Kaiju-Human drift experiment take one” Newt could feel his hands shaking as he made sure everything was in place for the drift. He was _probably_ gonna die, but hey, if it was for the good of humanity, what did he care? What did anyone really care anyways, the only person he really had was well... Hermann. _Well_ he had Tendo, but drinking buddies really didn’t count in the long run, did they? The only times they spoke they were either drunk, or getting there.

     “Unscientific aside, Hermann, if you’re listening to this, well I’m either alive and I’ve proven what I’ve just done works” a pause “In which case haha, I won” Newt took breath and debated whether or not he should vocalize what he _wanted_ to say next. It was kind of harsh but honestly, it was kind of true. “Or I’m dead, and I’d like you to know that this is all your fault, it really is, you know you drove me to this, in which case ha, I also win...sort of.” See? Harsh, but it was pretty freakin’ reasonable.

     If Hermann hadn’t kept pushing and pushing and calling him useless well then maybe...maybe he wouldn’t have had to prove himself like this, but that’s exactly what he was gonna do. He was gonna be a world saving rockstar, or die trying. He tried not to think too much about the fact that the second thing was very much a possibility. “Going in in three, two one...” A sudden rush of images hit Newt hard. Things from his own past flew by very quickly, then new territory. The kaiju’s memories were fast and it was very hard to grasp what he was seeing. Then it all went black.

OoOoO

     His warning came a way down the hallway from the lab. New-Dr. Geiszler was likely working based upon the time, and he certainly was unlikely to have his music playing below the maximum amplitude the speakers could produce based upon the course of action the Marshall had decided to follow.

     It was silent.

     Hermann knew that only one of two things could have happened: Dr. Geiszler had finally decided to grow up, or he--

     Hermann bolted down the hallway as fast as he could manage, terrified of what the _idiot_ may have done to himself. He grasped the handle to the lab and... _Gott verdammt Idiot_ The security lock had been thrown! He fumbled at the glowing screen to the side of the door, desperately entering the _zu verdammt langen_ code, growing steadily more anxious as the seconds passed.

     Finally, the door opened and-- _Mein Gott!_ “Newton,” he whispered in shock, seeing the man collapsed upon the floor, shocked for a split second into inactivity. _This is all my fault, my fault_ , his mind kept repeating as he approached the prone form of Newt upon the floor next to the massive brain beside him, looming like a threat. “Newton!” He yelled as he fell to the side of the _wahnsinnig_ _Idiot_ , trying to shake his shoulder, to rouse the man. “What have you done?” Hermann growled both at himself and the _Dummkopf_ next to him as he reached for the release mechanism on the top of the pons.

     He felt for a pulse, and for one _heart-wrenching_ moment, he felt nothing and then, faint against his fingers and fluttering, he felt a pulse. Hermann ripped the mechanism off of Newt and, _Gott sei Dank_ , Newt released a groan as his head fell back against the machine. The man was alive, that much was certain. How long he would stay as much after Hermann had a go at him was a different question.

     Newton’s eyes drifted open, unfocused and distant. “Newton, can you hear me?” Hermann asked, dreading any sort of answer or worse, lack of response.

     “I-I…” The man didn’t appear to understand what Hermann was saying.

     Hermann glanced about for something to place Newt in, just to get him off of the floor. Hermann’s own green chair was retrieved and set next to the still prone biologist. Hermann grasped the man from under the shoulders and dragged him into the chair with more strength than he had known he was capable of. Hermann then moved to the front of the chair, directly in front of the still-dazed Newt.

     “Newton, please, can you hear me?” he repeated, desperate for some sign of higher mental function.

     “Y-yeah...H..herm?”Alright, he was recognizing faces, speaking, and was not seizing, that was the best Hermann could hope for.

     “Newt, I’m going to leave a glass of water right next to you, drink it if you can. I’m going to get the Marshall, I’ll be right back, right back, alright?” Newt moved his head in something resembling a nod, so Hermann grabbed the shot glass he knew resided in Newt’s desk and filled it with water from the tap, leaving it on the desk just behind Newt before he dashed out.

     He sprinted through the halls of the Shatterdome, his cane barely making contact with the floor, almost knocking over two separate J-Tech officers as he made his way to LOCCENT. He burst through the doors, not even bothering to demonstrate any sort of decorum. “Marshall!” He called. The Marshall didn’t turn, so he called again: “Marshall! I need to talk to you!”

     Not now Mr. Gottlieb,” he replied casually over his shoulder. _Verdammt Soldat_ , why couldn’t he understand how important what Hermann was saying was? “I’m certain you can appreciate how important this moment is.”

     “Newton created a neural bridge from garbage and drifted with a Kaiju!” Hermann exclaimed, pausing half-way into the room, barely standing after the effort of running across a majority of the ‘Dome, the pain of neglecting his cane the whole way, the shock of seeing Newt so…

     The Marshall twisted on a heel and began moving with a speed that could only be described as militarily brisk. Hermann struggled to match pace, the adrenalin he had felt already draining, and pain blossomed from his hip in heated waves that threatened to force Hermann onto the floor. Somehow, he managed to follow the whole way, gasping out explanations, Newt’s status as he had left, everything he knew about Newt’ plans, absolutely everything. Somehow, he managed to make it to the lab. He wasn’t entirely certain how.

     As he hobbled into the room, barely standing, he was relieved to see Newt had been drinking the water. No. _Dr. Geiszler_ had been drinking the water. If his lab partner was operating fully now, he needed to be more careful.

     “I told you it would work,” Newt began, with a finger in the air to demonstrate as much. Hermann was fairly certain that comment was meant for him and Newt couldn’t see shapes clearly as his glasses were missing and one eye was bloodshot. _Just like the early Jaeger pilots_ , Hermann’s mind traitorously supplied. He would be fine. Dr. Geiszler would be fine.

     The Marshall asked Newt a question, to which Ne-Dr. Geiszler responded with unclear ramblings, clearly unfocused. The Marshall looked to Hermann in a silent question: _is this making sense to you?_

     Hermann shook his head, but then nothing was making sense just then. The Marshall grabbed a chair and tried again, but Hermann wasn’t paying attention, not really. He was trying his level best to judge how well Dr. Geiszler might be, how much damage he might have sustained. At least, that was the goal until Newt expressed his belief that the Kaiju were following orders.

     “That’s impossible,” Hermann interjected. It had to be.

     “Is it impossible?” Newt asked, his voice small, fragile.

     “It’s impossible,” he reiterated, frightened of the consequences of being wrong. Because if it were possible, then the Rift was controlled, not random. If it were possible, then there might be more to it than Hermann had predicted. If it were possible, then New- _Dr._ _Geiszler_ was the only one who could determine valuable information about these monsters that had already nearly killed him. If it were possible, New- _Dr. verdammt_ _Geiszler!_ His name was _Dr. Geiszler_ and Hermann needed to get that straight! _If it were possible_ Dr. Geiszler _would recklessly put himself in danger_. He would drift again or worse, go out in the double event that was almost certainly coming and-- no. It was just impossible.

     “Because if you think--” Hermann began to elaborate, only to be spoken over hysterically by Dr. Geiszler until...

“YOU!” the Marshall boomed, looking directly at Hermann. “SHUT UP!”

     “Yes sir,” Hermann responded automatically, quietly. He was silent for the rest of their interaction, moving meekly as his largest fears--no--most significant concerns manifested and Dr. Geiszler was sent out to meet with a dangerous criminal right before a double event that could easily land in Hong Kong. He was silent as the Marshall began walking back to LOCCENT with that same brisk pace and Dr. Geiszler began scurrying around the lab, explaining things Hermann might need to be careful of when transporting the pons. And Hermann didn’t say anything beyond meek consent, because he had no objections. He wasn’t worried. He wouldn’t allow himself to worry...he had stopped worrying about Newt a long time ago.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *God damn idiot  
> *Too damn long  
> *My god   
> *insane idiot   
> *idiot (lit. stupid head)  
> *Thank god   
> *damn soldier   
> *damn 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave reviews and stuff. They really, really help!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry that I'm uploading this a bit late in the day. Nothing new to report, just enjoy! Thanks for reading!

     The time to leave hit Newt and Hermann like a ton of bricks. Every day that went by Newt told his boyfriend ‘don’t worry Herms… We still have two more weeks’. Then it was ‘a week is a lot longer than you think it is’ and then ‘c’mon… we can do a lot of kissing and shit in 2 days’. On the last day Newt and Hermann just… held on to each other. Their classes had already been over for 3 days and Newt got his packing done early for once, so they stayed in bed all day talking, figuring out how they were going to continue their relationship because they were _definitely_ staying together after this, because Newt wasn’t about to give that guy up. That day passed even more quickly than the others and before they both knew it, Newt was standing just off to the side of the security line at the airport, small carryon on the floor by his feet, and holding onto Hermann like his life depended on it.

     “You’re gonna call me like, every night, right?” He said quietly, trying to keep his voice from shaking too much.

     “Every night, Newt. Eleven o’clock, every night. And you’ll e-mail me, right? ”Hermann was apparently much worse at keeping his voice straight.

     “Every freakin’ day, man. I promise. Especially while I’m at home before I head back to MIT...and we’ll find a way to see each other next summer for sure. I’ll apply for another program over here, or maybe you could come to America!?”

     “We’ll both apply; whoever gets the better offer, ja? And...and you will think about coming to TU?” This was a conversation that they had had while lying in bed the previous day

     “Like I said, if I can get a scholarship I’ll be over here as soon as I can but… I have to go or I’ll never get through security before my flight leaves.” He said that with the intention of letting go, but it didn’t happen. He just held on tighter.

     “Just...don’t forget me,” Hermann said, leaning back enough to be able to press his lips to Newts. “You should go, you’re right.” Newt felt his grip begin to slack and he gave Hermann one last tight squeeze

     “How could I _ever_ forget you? You’re probably the best person I’ve ever met. Like, In my entire life. You know that…” Once again Newt noticed a few abnormal cracks in his voice, but they had both promised that they were _not_ going to cry. Crying meant that they were saying goodbye and that wasn’t what was happening. This was… temporary.

     Finally Newt couldn’t justify standing still any longer and he dropped his arms, and bent down to pick up his bag off the floor. “I love you.” He said firmly, leaning in to kiss Hermann on the forehead. “And I will see you as soon as I possibly can.”

     “I love you, too, Newt. Text me when you’re through security and when you land, so I know you’re alright.”

     “Alright, I’ll try not to die in a horrible plane crash, kay?” Judging by Hermann’s expression, he was not amused. “I was kidding… I’ll be fine. Goodby- wait.. no… See you later, Hermann.” One more kiss and he was rushing to get into the line before it got any larger. They were going to be okay… the long distance relationship thing would be hard but they could definitely manage! They loved each other, right? Yeah. Newt would miss Hermann, but they would be fine. It wasn’t the end of the world, or of their relationship. Everything was going to be okay.

OoOoO

     “... _in which case ha, I also win...sort of. Going in in three, two one..._ ” Hermann was fairly certain that Newt hadn’t recorded anything else of use, and didn’t particularly care to listen to the choked gasps he could barely hear through the cheap audio recorder Newt used during dissections. He didn’t...he hadn’t wanted to hear any of that, and for the first time he could remember he cursed his curiosity.

     It was just...he had seen that the recording was still running and stopped it and, out of curiosity, listened back to the recording. He had hoped for something reassuring; Newt rattling off safety precautions or statistics or...something that made Hermann feel more confident about the next trial.

     Instead, he listened to...that. He struggled to find a word to describe it, not wanting to say the word he found most accurate, because it _wasn’t that_. Newt was making a scientific record of a groundbreaking experiment, definitely not (Come now, thinking it won’t make it true) a...a _Selbstmordanmerkung_. Just because he had locked the door as though he didn’t want anyone to come in too soon, to interrupt, just because he had undertaken something that was not only likely, but _almost certain_ to kill him, just because he had left a message blaming someone for his probable demise, that didn’t necessarily mean that the recording was a suicide note.

     Newton would never do something as stupid...as reckless as...as irresponsible as...would he?

     Of course, that didn’t matter, not really. Even if it was Newton’s goal, he had failed. He was alright, mostly, and...and Hermann could make modifications to the equipment, could try to account for the incredible neural load, try to keep Newt safe. Safe from the kaiju, safe from himself, _safe_.

     That...that was the least Hermann could do. If...if the recording was exactly what Hermann most feared, if Newt had preferred the idea of dying a hero to spending another moment in Hermann’s company, then making sure it didn’t work was the least he could do. The rest...he didn’t know if he could, if he would be able to…

 _Gott_ , every path he could see in the future was paved in pain. If the second drift failed and Newt died in such a way that it was no one’s fault but Hermann’s, if Newt lived but...tried again in such a way that couldn’t be stopped, if Newt survived and pretended everything was the same, if he survived and didn’t and Hermann tried to ease off, if he survived and Hermann pretended nothing had changed...there was no good choice, not in the lot. Each potential future had its own set of guilt, of loss, of pain, and the mathematician couldn’t quite decide he would want.

     His life, at this point, resembled a single-variable function with two horizontal asymptotes defined by a series of vertical asymptotes, each approaching negative infinity, and even the local maximum points were at the same negative value. Yes, he knew that any event that involved Newt’s death would...break Hermann, just like the breakdown of simple algebra at division by naught. Yes, he hoped that Newton would live, but beyond that, there was no optimal solution; every single possibility was equally damaging.

     And damn Newton for that! Hermann had already experienced more than enough damage at the hands of that fool already, he didn’t need anything else! Damn him! Damn that recording! Damn….everything! Hermann kicked the edge of a table with his bad leg hard enough to feel the impact, then did so again and again and again, because damn that fool! Hermann had been satisfied with his life. He had a wife and a child on the way, he was the head of his own department of research, he had his _life_ together. He hadn’t been happy, no, but that was something Hermann had long since abandoned as a life goal. He had been successful, and that had been enough until that _verdammt Idiot_ came back into his life.

     And now, now Hermann had nothing. He had no wife, no child, no personal life to speak of, a professional life that was likely to waste down the drain very quickly if this didn’t work, and, well, if this didn’t work they’d likely all die anyway, but that wasn’t the point. It was as if Newt’s return had cast a black cloud over the entirety of Hermann’s life, taking absolutely everything he had. And now, now Newt wasn’t content with being the apparent turning point of Hermann’s life for the worse not once, but _two damn times_ , but he had the _audacity_ to blame Hermann for whatever might be wrong in his.

     Fine. Fine, then. Hermann would do what was necessary, whatever it took to keep Newt alive. And he wanted to say that he would finally get his back, finally wrest control of his life from that _Scheißkerl_ , whatever it took. Or, maybe, he wanted to say that he’d comfort the man and perhaps...perhaps he could set aside past wrongs. But, right now, Hermann didn’t know. He didn’t know, and didn’t care, not yet.

     He left the lab and hobbled over to LOCCENT, awaiting the command to bring the equipment to Newt. He had a job to do, and by _Gott_ , he was going to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Suicide note  
> *Damn idiot  
> *Bastard (or motherfucker)  
> *God


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soooo sorry this chapter is so late guys! It was a busy day and we weren't near a computer. Either way, enjoy! Sorry for the lateness.

     “Two signatures? _Two?!_ ” Hermann roared into the handset over the wind as though it had personally insulted him. He turned back to Newt preparing the probe to be inserted into the kaiju fetus’s brain, inflamed by this news. “There are _two_ kaiju signatures in the breach, not three like I predicted!”

     “Hermann!” Newt interrupted, clearly agitated. “I haven’t exactly had a good day, okay? I got about five minutes…”

     “ It Should be three!” Hermann interjected in the pause Newt took to push the probe through the thick skin protecting the monster’s crown.

     “...Before brain death occurs here,” Newt continued, as though Hermann had not spoken, climbing off the barely formed kaiju. “I don’t want to spend it talking about your theories!”

     “They’re getting it all wrong!” Hermann replied, following Newt back to the pons. “There should be three kaiju’s coming through, not two!”

     “Oh, there should be three and there’s two; I’m sorry, hurts to be wrong, doesn’t it?” Newt sarcastically retorted, switching on the contraption and grabbing the helmet.

     “I’m not wrong, but there is something here that we don’t understand,” Hermann replied. _He was not wrong_. The information Newt could retrieve  in the drift would doubtlessly explain the breakdown of his projections.

     “Hermann. Hopefully we can argue about any mistakes you’ve made in your predictive model in the future, but in the meantime the neural interface is way off the charts.”

     That struck a memory in Hermann, something said years earlier, at the beginning of the program, when the Jaegers were not yet a certain thing. Before the first drift, when Dr. Lightcap had nearly panicked when Lieutenant [Sergio D'onofrio](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Sergio_D%27onofrio) had almost died, when she saved him by putting on a spare headset. _The neural load is too high_.

     “...want to help, help with that!” Newt continued as Hermann gathered his thoughts again.

     “Newton, I am not wrong!” _Do it now, then, if you want to save him_. “There is only one way to make sure.” A minor alteration in the input code, a few modifications to power supply and pons flow... “And that is to do this.” Hermann takes off his glasses and looks at Newt’s turned back. “Together.” Newt turns slowly, stunned, and something in his eyes... “I’ll go with you. That’s what the Jaeger pilots do, share the neural load.” Hermann attempted to broadcast through his gaze that this was a truce, that this was a cessation of fire until the end of the crisis, nothing more, nothing less.

     “You’re serious? You-You would do that for me, or, you would--you would do that with me?” He was fairly certain that Newt had taken it as more than he had intended, but still, the happiness Newt was exuding was infectious, and Hermann couldn’t...he couldn’t help it.

     “Well, with world-wide destruction a certain alternative, do I really have a choice?” He responded with a wry smile, and that slight upward curl opened an excitement in Newt that Hermann hadn’t seen, not in over fifteen years.

     “Then say it with me my man: we’re gonna own this bad boy!”

     “By Jove, we are going to own this thing for sure!” All of a sudden, he wanted this. He wanted not only to succeed, to get any information they could, to stop the kaiju once and for all, but he wanted _this_. He wanted Newt happy, he wanted to be happy. As Newt placed the helmet over Hermann’s head, as terrified as he was, he was excited. He felt like he had found a path that would, at last, have a positive result.

     “You ready for this?” Hermann was nowhere near ready for the drift itself...but the potential for what could come...he gave a minute nod. “Initiating neural handshake in five...four...three...two...one.”

 _“-and the name of this band is ‘Journey’” his uncle--but his uncle was Gunter, not Illia-- said with a smile from the driver’s seat of his car. Then what must have been a fraction of a second later he was in a room with a cup of coffee wrapped in his small hands and everyone was speaking German that he couldn’t understand- even though German was his first language, then he was in a lab surrounded by people that were very obviously years older than him. They didn’t take him seriously and that pissed him off, then he was in a lab with Hermann--how is this possible?-- and he was yelling and he was pissed. More and more memories flew by and they went too fast to comprehend but there was just so much anger, every time there was a glimpse of Hermann’s face it was accompanied by a flurry of negative emotions-- and then it was over and the memories were no longer human_. 

OoOoO

 _“Hände waschen bevor Sie essen,” his mother--that wasn't his mom, he was sure--chided and Annoyance and Hunger and Obedience because he knew he should do as she asked and wash his hands and How did I know that? and then she was gone and he was at university for the first time and Everyone is so huge and Where is my class and Being knocked to the ground by a footballer and Anger and Frustration and cold icy Dread and then he’s at a chalkboard, now a different one, a third, a fourth, a fifth and now there is music in his ears and in his head and Distracted and maybe Hurt? and then the same lab and Newt--aren't I Newt?--is there and yelling and every word is filled with Hurt so strong he can barely stand, almost loses the grip on his cane and Newt just left and a magazine is there and Pain and Guilt and Betrayal and Loneliness and oh_ Gott _Vanessa and things flash faster than he can process, but Pain, Hurt, Loneliness seem to envelop and the word 'Selbstmord'_ _circles the most recent of thoughts and all the maxima are negative and then...then he was not human._

     When Newt came back to his senses it took a moment for him to comprehend what he had just seen. He asked Hermann if he was alright, Hermann threw up and then it seemed to hit them both at the same time.

     “The drift...You saw it?”

     “Yeah”

     “Did you?!”

     “Yeah- yeah listen we have to warn them...the jaegers, the breech...th- the plan...”

     “ _It’s not going to work._ ”

    What happened after that is honestly kind of a blur. What seemed like moments later they were back at the Shatterdome explaining loudly exactly what they had just discovered to the jaeger pilots and to the rest of the room. Then they held their breath for what seemed like ages and then suddenly it was over. The breech was closed, the clock was stopped and everyone was celebrating loudly. Even Hermann inched closer to him and Newt understood what he wanted. He wrapped his arms around Hermann for the first time in years and held onto him tightly. “We did it…” He muttered under his breath and for a moment he was more happy than he could remember being in so long.

     They were both rushed off to medical before they had much time to do any celebrating and then Newt was alone again. The medical ward was cold and quiet and for the first time since he had been in his lab partners mind, Newt had time to think about what he had seen. Granted, he really hadn’t seen a lot. Just a few flashes here and there. The thing that stood out the most was the pain… There had been so much. Especially when he relived the moment Hermann had found out about his cheating wife. There had been betrayal and hurt and anger and if he had realized how upset Hermann had been about it he wouldn’t have fought back so hard… that didn’t matter now though. Not now that they had saved the world together. Surely that was more than enough to make Hermann okay with him again, right? They _had_ just been in each others minds after all. Seriously, there is no way that man would have done that with just anyone… right? Newt decided not to think too much about it right then. They had a lot of time to talk about it now that the world wasn’t ending anymore. They were gonna be fine, and with that thought, Newt allowed himself to finally get some sleep.

OoOoO

     The last thing Hermann wanted to do was think about the drift. He craved a crowd, noise, perhaps even alcohol, anything to stop his hyperactive brain from processing what he had seen. Because, _verdammt_ , he had been happy. For a few moments before the drift, through the tense helicopter ride back to LOCCENT, through to when victory was announced and Hermann had, somewhat reflexively, invaded Newt’s space as a silent request for contact. Things had been good. And then they were carted off, separately, to medical and after a flurry of motion of vital signs and monitors, everything was silent.

     And Hermann didn’t have the data from Gipsy Danger’s last moments, or the last several hours of rift activity, so he could not focus on physics. And he did not have access to a computer, so he could not work on one of the projects he had considered for when this was all over. And he did not have music so that he might not think at all and merely listen to Mozart’s Operas (he preferred Wagner, but he had made a point to avoid _[Die Walküre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Walk%C3%BCre) _ long enough that it was habit). And he could not bicker with Newt for, well, obvious reasons.

     And so he thought about the drift.

     He had been trying to ignore it, after all, it was a personal thing, and he would have preferred not to be involved too closely with the personal details of Newt’s life, but...it was far too late to ignore them now. Hermann had no clear memories from the drift, as he had been focusing upon the more pressing issue, but he had still seen enough. Images of his face, their lab, the entrails of a kaiju, but each one bore such an enmity, such a level of despise that Hermann knew only one target was possible.

     Hermann didn’t mind, honestly, he was alright with it. He had wanted this for some time, validation that yes, Newton Geiszler hated Hermann Gottlieb; no, what bothered him was Newt’s attempts to play nice. The man clearly hated him, and yet and been willing to let Hermann pretend that everything was alright, that they could go back to before…

     But that was impossible. They could not go back. And the positive point that Hermann had glimpsed just before the drift had turned out to be a hole in the graph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'm not going to bother with translating the German this time because I don't think it's necessary. If anyone really wants me to, you can ask and I will. Rate and review!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Important note for you guys today! This chapter is rather short, but the next one is an absolute monster. My co author and I will be at convention next weekend so will not be able to upload that chapter on Friday, we will be uploading it earlier in the week, on Wednesday. The chapter that we upload that day will be the last real chapter of the story, but there will be an epilogue! (Which is why I changed the number of chapters to 11. That's all! Thank you guys for keeping up with us!

     Newt had high hopes for this day. It was his birthday, he and Hermann were cool now and Tendo was taking him out for drinks that night since now it was relatively safe to go out into the city. It had been a great morning, he felt good about himself and he couldn’t help but grin as he walked into the lab. Normally he would have gone straight for his work space and try not to spark an argument at least until he had set up, but today he walked over to his lab partner and patted his back lightly. “Hey Herms, how you feelin’? I know they didn’t let you out of medical until the other day, and I haven’t seen you around.” he said as he turned to make his way to his work space.

     “I’m fine, Dr. Geiszler.” Hermann muttered quietly before adding “And please refrain from touching me. It is unprofessional.”

     “Oh…” Newt said in a way that definitely made it very obvious that he was confused.

     “Are you surprised?” Hermann turned sharply to face Newt and said very firmly,“I have always felt -- and informed you -- that I would prefer if you maintained your distance. I do not understand why you are suddenly reverting back to a behavior you know I detest, but please refrain in the future.”

 _Well, not always..._ Newt thought to himself, and then shook his head, forcing those thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t think about that… “Look man, I’m sorry… but I thought we were cool… after the drift, you know?”

     “What could you possibly mean by that? It’s not as though I had any sort of choice in the matter, the world was ending!”

     “I know the world was ending, dude. I do, but that doesn’t change the fact that you were in my head. I thought we were okay… I mean, you must have seen…” He muttered as he looked down and began absentmindedly scratching at his right arm

     “Seen what, Dr. Geiszler? What do you think I could have seen that would have suddenly willing to change everything about my behavior, to pretend all of a sudden that we are some sort of ‘chums’ or ‘mates’ when I thought I had made it perfectly clear that I have no desire to be anywhere near you, much less on such a consistent basis as we are frequently called upon. Don’t flatter yourself; nothing in your mind is nearly so interesting as that.”

     Newt opened his mouth, and then shut it immediately. There was honestly nothing he could say to that. Hermann had seemed okay with him. He honestly thought they could _at least_ talk like they didn’t hate each other. Though, he hadn’t seen anything in the drift to indicate otherwise. Just a lot of...well… pain. “Sorry Herm-... Dr. Gottlieb. You just seemed… alright… with me... after the drift…”

     “Ah, you thought that was personal, then? Because acting slightly unreasonably when faced with saving the entirety of the world is completely out of the question. Naturally, I am expected to behave exactly as I did after _cancelling the apocalypse_ at all times.” Hermann scoffed loudly “Don’t flatter yourself, Dr. Geiszler. That changes absolutely nothing.”

     Newt sat in silence for another few moments before taking a deep shaky breath and standing up. “You know, my new specimens won’t be around until tomorrow, and I can do this report then… “

     “I had rather hoped for as much. After all, I have about 20 seconds of data with which I need to analyze the laws of physics not only of an entirely separate universe, but the interior of an actual, functioning Einstein-Rosen bridge. Do have a good day.”

     “Tendo’s taking my out for drinks tonight, for my birthday… you won’t have to deal with me. Sorry for bothering you, Dr. Gottlieb.” If Hermann wasn’t gonna talk to him, the least he could do was try to back off. He could see that he was upset and definitely didn’t need Newt bugging him, and hey. Maybe if he backed off, Hermann would too. He took one more look back as he gathered his things and headed towards the doorway. “See you around…” he mumbled, making sure to shut the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for keeping up with this fic! Don't forget to Kudos or review if you liked it!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! This is the last chapter before the epilogue, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Please don't let all the new tags scare you off!

     It was three in the morning and he suddenly knew, _knew_ he was on the edge of something and needed to be in the lab. He quickly changed out of his sleep clothes and scurried down to his chalkboards, but he stopped a few feet from the door. _Of course_ Newton was there, _of course_ he was playing music, and _of course_ it was...It had to be _Dark Side of the Moon_. It couldn’t have been any other album, any other band, _of course_ it was exactly what would hurt the most.

     Glimpses of the past from both perspectives flicked past, memories of doing work with this music in the background, the odd sense of pride in himself the first time he recognized it, the matching blossom of happiness from Newt (that memory had to be Newt’s) of joy when Hermann had first absentmindedly hummed fragments from the album. They had...after that first time, after that first day, it was an unsaid fact that _Dark Side_ was _theirs_.

     So it had to be _Dark Side_.

     “For God’s sake, could you turn down that racket!?” Hermann exclaimed as he threw open the door to the lab, quickly hobbling over to his construct of boards and ladders.

     Newt was clearly surprised, nearly jumping from his seat and almost spilling his coffee onto the computer terminal where he was working. “Right, yeah… sorry…” he replied, scrambling for the button on the audio system behind him. It took a few moments, as there were the remains of a cup of ramen, a large stack of papers, and something unnamed that Hermann would rather not question sitting on top of the controls.

     Hermann couldn’t help but scoff at the sight. Newt had been so...deferential since the slight altercation on his birthday, about a month ago. It was though Hermann’s every whim was Newton’s command, and while it had been nice at first, Hermann wanted nothing more than a full on screaming match, an actual fight instead of this quiet complacency. It was almost like...like Newt was dismissing him, ignoring him, tired of him.

     Perhaps that would have been alright, perhaps Hermann could have lived with it, moved on, passed it by, but he was exhausted and frustrated by Newton’s despondence and _Newton was playing Dark Side of the Moon_ like it was nothing, like he could hear a heartbeat, or a cash register’s bell without thinking of it, without remembering, without aching like someone had hollowed out his interiors and replaced them with burning cold ice. And Hermann...Hermann couldn’t stand it anymore. _Enough was enough_.

     “Are you even physically capable of keeping your space clean?” he asked, staring scornfully at the mess on Newton’s side of the lab. “It’s as though the gene everyone else has that inspires the urge to clean is mutated into some ungodly mockery that incites you to make the largest mess you find physically possible.”

     “Whatever you say, Hermann…” Newt responded, not a hint of scorn or sarcasm in his voice, not even a remnant of Newt’s loud antagonistic personality present.

“    It’s like you’re the embodiment of entropy: you are the chaos that increases in the positive direction of time.”

     Newt simply stared at his screen, blank and un-emotive. _Alright_ , Hermann thought. _Now it gets serious._

     “Did you know that it was your disorganization that made your mother reject you?” A slight wince, so small it may have been a trick of the light. “She told me as much that summer when she visited. You remember, of course, what she said when she stepped inside. Let’s see if I can get her exact phrasing down: ‘Oh, Hermann, how on Earth are you convincing my Newton to be so clean? You must be a miracle worker!’ Does that sound right? Actually, I don’t think I managed to capture the awe in her voice quite right. And it was awe, awe that I deserved. I scrubbed at every surface of that flat until it _shone_ while you sat there, twiddling your thumbs like there was no work to be done.

     “That wasn’t even the half of it though, did you know that? She pulled me aside later, talked to me, let me know that if you had been able to keep your room in her house as clean as that flat, she would have been willing to invite you back, to let you spend more time around her, but you were just so messy and inconvenient, she didn’t want to deal with you.” Newton reached for his i and began nursing from it, small sips through shaking hands. He was angry, quite angry, and Hermann could tell. He was nearly vibrating with rage, but still he was silent.

     “Maybe that’s why your father didn't love you, either. You were just so _messy_ , so _inconvenient_. After all, your existence ruined his marriage, and he certainly cared more for his wife than he did for you. Oh, did you know that I knew that, that your father hated your presence in his life, that he didn’t want you? I remember you never wanted to talk about it, but _mein Gott_ , it’s not as though it was difficult to put together. He clearly hated your presence, didn’t want you there, and didn’t want you to talk to him. He was ashamed of you.”

     “That probably hurts, having a failure ashamed of you. Let’s see, he was a piano tuner, but seeing as how he couldn’t keep his fork in his pants and away from the _piano_ , he had to leave his home and go to America, the land of the wretched. He couldn’t find much work there, seeing as he couldn’t speak enough English to get any American _pianos_ , and he had a bit of a reputation among the Germans with _pianos_ , so no work there, so he got that job as a graveyard shift fry cook at a fast food place. Tell me, did he ever make manager? I know he’d been trying for a while. I just want to get a grip on how much of a failure we’re talking about here, to make it clear how disgraceful it is that this man, this failed man, is ashamed of you.”

     Newton was fuming, to the point that Hermann was somewhat surprised that paths of steam were not trailing up from his ears. He was shaking and his face was contorted into some bizarre expression partially between rage, pity, and hurt. Still, though, he didn’t say a word, didn’t say a single thing. _How could he not say anything?_

     Hermann marched away from his boards to the side of Newton’s desk, spinning the man’s chair to the side so he was boxed in, Hermann’s hand blocking one side, the desk blocking the other. Hermann loomed low over the seated man, his eyes inches from Newt’s, boring holes into the biologist’s forehead, as Newt wouldn’t even meet Hermann’s eyes.

     “ _Why won’t you fight back?_ ” he hissed, voice cold and quiet. “Why won’t you say anything, I can see that you want to. It’s _burning you up_ that you’re not saying a word, not a single thing. Are you afraid? Afraid of what you’ll say? Afraid of _me_? For God’s sake, you’re scared of a _cripple_ , of a man who couldn’t hurt you if he _tried_! Just try! Let loose, come on, I can tell you want to. Yell. Scream. Call me an egomaniac, a control freak, a monster, an automaton, an uncultured swine, _ein Schweinebacke_ , anything! You want to; I can see it. You want to call me every name you can think of, you want to rant and roar and shout, you want to hurt me back, don’t you?” Newton was silent. “DON’T YOU!” Hermann suddenly roared into Newt’s face, eliciting a flinch.

     “I’m not going to yell at you, Hermann…”

     “You didn’t ANSWER THE QUESTION! TELL ME!”

     “Just calm do--”

     “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, YOU COWARD!” Hermann roared back. “I KNOW YOU DO, I KNOW, _SIE WOLLEN MICH ZU VERLETZEN WIE ICH DICH VERLETZT HABE, ALSO WARUM NICHT SIE? SCHREIEN SIE AT ME! SIE EINFACH_ \--” Hermann stopped mid-sentence and raised the hand still clutching the arm of Newton’s chair to his hair, ruffling it in agitation, both at Newt for driving him to this, and at himself for allowing it to get to the point where…

     He curled his hand into a fist in his hair, pulled it back in imitation of the gesture he had seen so many times on the other end, the recipient’s side, and allowed his arm to unwind, connecting forcefully with Newton’s cheek, snapping the man’s head to the side.

OoOoO

     It took Newt a moment to register what had just happened. There was yelling and the a sharp pain in his cheek as Hermann's fist collided with it. For a moment it was like he was a child again and that thought alone was too much to bare. Suddenly he was pulled back into the present and made an attempt to run away from the other man, but failed miserably and fell to the floor. He couldn’t find the strength to get up so he just slid back into the corner as quickly as he could and curled up, the familiar feeling of the beginning of a panic attack building in his chest. He wanted to say something but the fact that he was hyperventilating made that nearly impossible

      “Newton! Are you alright, I didn’t mean to actually--Newton!”

     It took a few moments for Newt to get his breathing slow enough to say anything at all, and even once he had, it was still quite hard to understand. “W- Why w-wou-would y-you do t-that… You k-knew… I t-told y-you- abo-about y-you k-k-knew…”

     “Newton, knew what? I don’t know what you mean, what’s wrong?”

     “I… I told you… I-in the l-letter I sent y-you f-from the hospital… about m-my dad… and y-you still… I know y-you ha-hate m-me but how c-could you…”

     “Letter? _Hospital?_ My God, Newt, what happened? What are you talking about, I don’t understand!”

OoOoO

 _Early, way too early. What the hell! They know I’m the best one there, I’m the only one who can handle everything at once! They need me, but they cut me early! I’m going to need to pick something up on the side if they keep doing this! I don’t have the time to work three jobs! I am an artist, I am the best in the business! I should not have to stoop so low! I should not need to beg, to fish for scraps at the bottom of the barrel, to work under fools that don’t deserve to lick the soles of my boots! If they could hear one of mine played, they would_ weep _at its beauty. If only they would_ listen _, just_ LISTEN _for once in their foolish, little lives! The fools don’t understand that they have the tuner for the Deutsche Oper Berlin on their payroll! They treat me like a swine, like I am a failure like the rest of them, like that useless son of mine!_

_My stop, get out of my way, you swine! If I’m going to get off this early, I’m damn well going to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and you fools do not get to stop me!_

_It wouldn’t be so bad if that useless son of mine would do something good with himself instead of sitting in that room of his all day “studying.” I was a boy once, I know what you do when no girl would even think of touching you and the door is locked. Maybe that’s why he’s been so moody since he left Darmstadt, maybe he finally found a cunt that didn’t mind if he was a freak and let him have a few good ruts. It’d be easy enough for him to get over it if he wasn’t such a pussy himself, such a freak of nature._

_Oh God, why did you give me such a freak for a son? Why couldn’t I have had a good boy, one more like me? Wasn’t Astrid leaving because of him punishment enough? Why couldn’t he be a normal boy? Couldn’t he have liked normal things, like football and music instead of plants and insects and monsters?_

_Unlock the door, at least he made sure to lock the door behind him, God I need a drink. What do we have? No beer, I finished that last night. Is there still any whiskey? Ah, yes. Just a bit to relax, and then I’ll check on the freak. Well, a bit more. That feels better, nice and loose, good._

_The light’s on in the boy’s room, is he still awake? It’s...when did the numbers on the clock get so blurry? It’s too late for that little shit to be awake. And he’s talking to someone! Talking, at this hour! I’ll just listen a little, outside the door, see what he’s doing._

     “Alright, so I think I’m starting to get it. We use this when we can’t integrate normally, so an example would be the integral of like, the square root of four minus x squared. We could set x equal to two times sine theta, and then we just have to use the power reducing formula and you have the integral of one minus cosine two-theta, and theta is the arcsine of the bounds divided by two, so if it’s like, zero to two, so that’s...let’s see, pi over two plus...no...minus one minus another, so pi over two minus two?”

_Freak son won’t speak German, won’t speak English, speaks this weird made up shit to himself._

     “Very good, Newt! See, you’re starting to get it! I told you, it’s really not that hard. I don’t see why you put it off so long?”

_Alright, not to himself, but who said he could have someone over? The little swine-shit was going to figure out not to pull this shit pretty fucking fast._

     “Nah, I’d be doing pretty terribly if I didn't have such a handsome tutor ready to help.”

_This was why no girl wanted to be seen around the little freak, he was always pulling shit like this, pretending to be a cocksucker. Maybe if he didn’t pull shit like this, he’d be able to score some time._

     “Come on, we both know you’re the handsome one.”

_So he’s talking with another shit who thinks it’s funny to pretend to be a faggot. Well, I’ll just have to show them both how to be men._

     “I miss you, Hermann.”

_Weak ass little shit. Talking to one of his little friends from that freak-school in Darmstadt._

     “I know, Newt, I do too, but it’s been a few months, and see? We’re still doing just fine.”

_What the hell was that supposed to mean?_

     “I know, it’s just, I love you so much and I miss the touch of your hand, the look of your face, the way you say my name when I put my hand on your--”

     “Newton!”

     “Sorry. I just miss you. It’s hard to get any when your boyfriend’s in Germany.”

_The little shit! So he wasn’t just pretending to be a cocksucker, the little freak is a faggot! I open the door and he’s still talking, his back is to me and he’s not paying attention, so he doesn’t even know I’m there until I grab the phone from the bed and throw it against the wall hard enough that something breaks, but it doesn’t matter. If he can’t even pretend to be a real man, he doesn’t deserve something nice like that._

_He’s whipped around to face me, and the little_ opfer _looks so scared he’s probably shat himself. He tries to scramble away, but I’ve got a hand on his arm and he can’t move, can’t get away from me._

     “Please, Dad, no! I’m sorry! I--”

 _The_ mecker liese _won’t shut his mouth if I don’t shut it for him, so I use my free hand to hit him in the jaw hard enough that something cracks._

     “SIE SPRECHEN WENN SIE GESPROCHEN!” _His nose._ “SIE SCHWANZLUSCHER!” _His eye._ “SIE MUSCHI!” _His stomach_. “WAS IST LOS MIT DIR?” _I take the arm that I’m still holding and throw him onto the bed._

_And then I beat the faggot out of my freak of a son._

OoOoO

     “... I… I was in the h-hospital for two w-weeks…” Newt said through heavy breaths, “I’m lucky he even took me… didn’t want my professors to worry I g-guess…I… I w-wrote you w-while I was in the h-hospital… they w-wouldn’t let m-me make an out of c-country c-call…a-and my d-dad checked m-my email...”

     “Newt-I...I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, but I never got that letter, I had no way of knowing, knowing that you...that your dad...I’m so sorry.”

     “R-right…” Newt replied softly. “Don’t act like y-you didn’t j-just think I was s-some freak wh-who got h-hit by his d-dad… It’s why I n-never had any f-friends… and w-when you showed up h-here… I tried to be n-nice, I w-wanted to show y-you that I’d grown up alright… that I w-was well adjusted and s-shit… b-but you just… _hated me…_ ”

     “I wouldn’t have cared, Newt! I...I _don’t_ care! That doesn’t matter! Why would that matter? I didn’t...I wouldn’t have cared, not at all. I wasn’t...I haven’t said what I have all this time because of-of your father! I thought you hated me! Or, more accurately, I hoped you hated me. Because either I did something, said something that made you hate me, or you had gotten bored, and I liked the idea of you hating me more. So when you were there and you tried to pretend that nothing had happened, that we were _friends_...I did hate you, just a little, because I wanted you to hate me and you _didn’t_. So I...I was horrible to you, so horrible, because I wanted you to hate me, because if you hated me, then it would be alright that I still love you.”

     What Hermann said didn’t help much, if anything, it made it a bit worse. Newt’s hyperventilating picked up again and he shook his head violently. “N-no…”, he choked out. “D-don’t say that… Y-you _hate_ m-me..p-please d-don’t.. I’m s-sorry I got you s-so m-mad… I s-saw how u-upset you w-were about y-your w-wife in the dri-drift and I j-just.. I thought I s-should back off s-so you w-weren’t so u-ups-set a- and I thought m-maybe you would b-back off… I found a n-new way of coping and I- I was doing a-alright and you.. you…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish that though because Hermann reached out a hand, probably trying to comfort him, but that didn’t matter. The hand stopped him in his tracks. “ _DON’T T-TOUCH ME!_ ” he shouted, trying to curl up into himself even more.

     “Newt, I didn’t...I wasn’t...I’m sorry. I just wanted you to fight back, like you had before. It was frustrating. I felt so alone, because... _Gott_ , even before I found out about Vanessa, you were the person closest to me. And then...and then when she was gone I realized how alone I was, that the only person who cared at all about me I wanted to hate me. And then I saw how angry you were at me in the drift, and I thought it was _working_ , and then it wasn’t and you weren’t fighting anymore and I couldn’t take it, couldn’t take you ignoring me, not again, not when you were playing that album, not when you were right there. I just...I had to make you hate me. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never should have...I mean, I never would have if I’d...I shouldn’t have _anyway_ and I’m so sorry. I won’t, not again, just...please, continue?”

     “I-it’s f-fine.. like I said…I-I found another w-way of c-coping…” Newt said quietly; finally calm enough to turn to face the other man, who at the moment looked like _he_ had just been punched in the face.

     “I’m...I’m sorry you had to have a way to cope in the _first_ place. I should...I should have given you a chance after the drift...Gott, I should have given you a chance to explain when we met again. So just...tell me. Tell me what how you’ve been...coping.”

     Newt’s hand instinctively went to his right forearm and he began to scratch furiously “Trust m-me...You d-don’t want to know…” He couldn’t let Hermann see… He didn’t want to be thought of as a freak again and this… this would freak Hermann out…

     “Newt, if it’s--” Hermann paused and took a deep breath. “If it’s something I don’t want to know, it’s something I need to know. I need to know the full accounting of my sins against you, in case...in case you ever give me the opportunity to make it up to you.”

     Newt took a few moments to think about what Hermann had just said and let out a defeated sigh “P-please don’t freak out…” he rolled up his sleeve so his full forearm was showing and held it out for Hermann to see. “It’s one o-of the r-reasons I got t-these tattoos… n-not the wh-whole reason, but it w-was partially because I d-did this w-when I was a teenager and I… I didn’t like people asking a-about the s-scars…”

OoOoO

     Hermann had been...confused for a moment, not certain what he was seeing. Not until he saw the thin scars crisscrossing beneath the tattoos, just the slightest bit lighter, ever so subtle beneath the bright and explosive color of Onibaba. And then he noticed the newer lines, dark red against the blue, some bleeding slightly from the attention Newton had been giving them moments before.

     It was...worse than he could have thought.

     “You...you’ve been doing this because of me?” Hermann asked, not really expecting an answer.

     “N-no I just… I was upset a-and having t-to hold it all i-in… It’s my f-fault for b-being so t-terrible at c-coping…” Newton scrambled out, seeming all the more distraught at Hermann’s reaction.

     Hermann nodded, almost numbly, as though he couldn’t quite process what he was seeing, the denials Newton was giving. “And before the first drift, the way that you didn’t seem to...care if you lived, that was because of me?”

     “I… I s-shouldn’t have b-blamed you for t-that… I was just p-pissed…”

     “No...no, Gott, you were right, you were so right and I couldn’t even see, couldn’t understand what I was doing, it was…I was…” A sob escaped Hermann as he sat down on the floor just far enough to be intentional. “Please, tell me. I know...I know you didn’t have these before...before that summer. When…?” Before Newt could reply, Hermann interrupted his own question. “You don’t have to answer that. You don’t have to answer me at all. If...if you want me to leave, I’ll leave.”

     “No… it’s fine, H-hermann… I’m fine…” A look came over Newt’s face, as though he was actively attempting to avoid a negative reaction, and his hand reached out for Hermann as though to offer some sort of comfort.

     “Newton, Newt, you don’t have to do this. It’s alright,” Hermann fought against another rising sob, but failed. “It’s alright if you aren’t, if you _don’t_...It’s alright if you never want to see me again, much less...You don’t have to do this.” _Because I did this, I made you terrified, I made you hurt yourself, I made you...I made you willing to throw your life away. I did that, I did all of that, all while thinking that I loved you._ “You don’t have to do this, because I’m worse, I’m so much worse. I _loved_ you, I _still_ love you, and I did this to you.”

     Newt drew his arm back into himself like a wounded limb and began to scratch furiously. “It’s o-okay… I mean… You didn’t k-know… and a lot o-of the things you were saying a-are true… I’m annoying and unprofessional a-and…”

     “Newton! None of that was true! I didn’t--I didn’t think you believed any of what I said!” Hermann began to reach out a hand to stop Newton’s scratching, terrified that he would open more of the fresh wounds, but he paused. “Newton, please...please stop. Please, just stop, I can’t...I can’t see you hurting yourself like this and not…please.”

     “S-sorry… sorry…” Newton stopped immediately and shifted his left arm down, as though ashamed of it. “It’s o-okay… I-I’m okay.. I just… Of course I t-took you seriously… You made v-valid points.. My tattoos are an ‘eyesore’ and I’m n-not… I’m not a real scientist… I don’t even know why I’m still h-here…”

     “Don’t know why you’re still here?’ Newton, you saved the world! Not Mr. Becket, not Miss Mori, not the Marshall or Chuck Hansen, not the Kaidonovski’s or the Wei triplets, _you_. I--Without you, the plan wouldn’t have worked, the apocalypse would still be on schedule.

     “And, your tattoos...yes, I can see why they offend some people. But do you know why they hurt me so much?”

     “No…” Newt looked down at his lap, staring down Onibaba. “You don’t have to be nice to me just because you freaked me out, y-you know…”

     “That’s...that’s not what this is, Newt. This is me setting the record straight.” Hermann took a deep breath, struggling once more against a sob. “Your tattoos hurt because...you drew them, didn’t you?” At a small, terse nod, Hermann gave a sad smile. “I thought so. They...they made me think of the better times, the sketches you’d draw of everything: plants, animals, subjects from movies, even...even me. They reminded me of when we were happy.

     “And...for the record, I’m very sorry to say that yes, what your mother said to me was a direct quote. And if you don’t mind me saying, it makes her completely unfit for that title that she was unable to forgive a child of his mess. You were eight years old. She had no right. She did not deserve you.

     “And I don’t know if you want to hear this, but neither did your father.” Newt’s hand made an aborted move for his forearm, matched by a similar reach by Hermann, but both stopped short of the completed action. “You will never know how proud of you I was, even before I knew everything, that you’d managed to take nothing, absolutely nothing, and turn it into the man before me right now. The rockstar scientist that saved the world.

     “I _know_ you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t deserve you either. I hurt you, hiding behind my own mask of pain, without ever stopping to ask why. And you deserved at least that much, but I should never have given up on you. I should have kept dialing, called the college, called your mother, called anyone that might know how to contact you. I should have been there for you when you needed me the most. So...so I’m sorry. Because I should have been with you through the worst of it, and instead I was sulking in my own pain.”

     “Y-you didn’t know…” Newt’s left hand reached out, slowly, but far more steadily than the last time he had tried. “I s-should have called once I was back at MIT a-after break… I just… I was c-convinced you didn’t want to talk to me a-anymore b-because… You k-know…”

     Hermann offered an upturned palm, but made no move to reach for Newt. “I do. And you’ll never know how much I wish I had gotten that letter.”

     Newt closed the space between their hands and shifted a little closer. “I just wanted you to l-like me a-again…”

     “I know, I know. And I just wish I had let myself. You know...you know that I always loved you, right?”

     “Well n-no...but it’s good to hear and even th-though I _wanted_ to hate you for what you were sayin I c-couldn’t.. I felt the same and it hurt s-so much w-worse...”

     “I...trust me...I understand. It would have been so much easier if I could have just hated you. But...even though I know it hurt, I’m still glad for the pain. Because...because now, if you’ll let me, maybe we can start to make things better.”

     “I-if that’s what y-you want.. You d-don’t have to do anything for me…” Newt closed the space between them and gingerly laid his head against Hermann’s sweater-vest clad chest.

     “That’s...that’s where you’re wrong. I owe you at least fifteen years of pain, of hurt. And I’d like to make it up to you, because you deserve it. And I may not be alright with what I’ve done, I may never forgive myself, and I understand if you never can either, but I’d like to at least have the chance.”

     Newt’s head nodded softly against Hermann’s chest before lifting himself up to look Hermann in the eye for the first time that night, noticing the silent tears that had run down the mathematician’s face. Newt gently wiped away the tear tracks and pressed a tentative, chaste kiss to Hermann’s lips. “A-alright…” Newt smiled weakly at Hermann, who in turn allowed his mouth to curl into a slight smile.

     “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are your translations guys! As always, please rate and review! 
> 
> *God damn soldier  
> *double crossing so and so  
> *You want to hurt to hurt me like I hurt you, so why don’t you? Scream at me! Just--  
> *loser, freak, retard (Lit. victim)  
> *whiner, esp. woman  
> *You will speak when spoken to!  
> *You cocksucker  
> *You pussy  
> *What is wrong with you


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! We are soooo sorry this is late. We were at a con this weekend and didn't realize that there wouldn't be any wifi. This is the last bit of this fic! Thank you so much for everyone who has kept up with it. If you ever want to find us elsewhere, My (Newt's) Tumblr is NerdyGeiszler.Tumblr.com and Katie's (Hermann's) is UrManGottlieb.Tumblr.com. I take ficlet requests and I'm always up for a conversation! Thanks everyone!

     “Where did you get this scar?” Newt said, indicating a small white indent in the shape of a crescent moon on Hermann’s chest

     “My adviser had a cat. It didn’t much care for me. Mr. Tingles ruined my shirt giving me that,” he replied with a small chuckle

     Newt laughed and kissed the scar gently, “I never was much of a cat person, little shits, all of them.” after he kissed that particular scar a few more times he leaned down to kiss a birthmark he particularly liked on Hermann’s left shoulder. “I almost forgot about this one…” he muttered against the skin.

     A shift in Newts weight caused a groan from the man underneath him and he grinned. “I missed that too,” he said with an obvious sense of satisfaction.

     “I-ah-rather had as well. It’s strange, seeing everything the same”

     “What’s this one?” Hermann asked, indicating a small scar on the pad of Newts finger that wrapped around to his nail.

     “I got lazy with a scalpel in my first year teaching.” Hermann kissed his finger and Newt laughed. It was odd seeing the other man like this, not only because there had been so much animosity between them the past few years, but also because he had once known Hermann’s body so well and here he was, laid but more...colorful.”

     “Yeah, that must be weird for you.” Newt muttered. He hadn’t actually thought about that. That _must_ be weird. That thought was pushed out of his mind when Hermann tugged on his last remaining article of clothing. He slipped it off and bent down to kiss Hermann’s neck. “I still think you’re gorgeous, you know…” Newt said softly, trailing kisses down his body until he reached his hip “Even this…” He kissed the scarring and frowned. “How did that happen anyways?”

     “It’s not the dramatic story you might think. A motorbike hit me as I crossed the street. It was my fault, a paper I was marking had flown into my face.”

     If the injury hadn’t been life altering, Newt would have laughed, but he stopped himself by kissing the scarring a few more times.

     Newt didn’t know how long they spent going over every inch of each others bodies. It was slow and by far the most intimate thing he had ever experienced. Sure they had had sex before, but it was never like this. This was slow and personal and there was so much more emotion involved than any of the previous times. They had both been so deprived of each other so long.

     “I love you, man.” Newt said with a smile, really enjoying the fact that he could now talk to Hermann like he was a person and not something he should avoid at all costs.

     “I love you, too.” Hermann smiled sadly and Newt leaned down to kiss it off of him.

     “Don’t look so upset…” He mumbled against the other man’s lips.

     "I’m not upset, I just...if I hadn’t been a such a fool--”

     “Hush your mouth” Newt interrupted, kissing down his neck until he got to a point where he knew Hermann was very sensitive, sucking a bit here and there

     “Not possible if you keep doing that. Good to know you r--ah--remembered.”

     Newt smirked and sucked a bit harder, “Oh you can make all the noise you want, as long as it’s happy noise.” A shift of the hips and he felt Hermanns arms clench into fists behind his back “Good to know you’re enjoying yourself,” He said with a groan of his own.

     Some time later, when they had finished, they held onto each other, comforted by the feel of a warm body and the sound of another heartbeat. This was going to be hard. They certainly had a lot of issues they needed to work out. They couldn’t just ignore everything that had happened, not to mention the fact that they couldn’t stay at the Shatterdome forever…but they would cross those bridges when they got to them. Those were all things to think about later. For now they were more content in one another’s arms than they had been in fifteen years, and they were _happy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to rate and review! It really helps us out to know what you guys think!


End file.
